Page:The Power of the Spirit.djvu/109

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THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT

man that it must be tested—nay, by its impress also upon the customs of ordinary society, by the extent to which it gets its principles of brotherhood and charity incorporated into laws and methods of government, and compulsory social practice, into international practice and the law of nations. So Harnack was wrong; and with him all Germany was wrong. For all law and all world-policy, however wide, are concerned in the end with the fate of individual men, women, and children; and settle for the peasants who live in the hills and valleys and plains of each spot upon the map— be it South Slavia or Armenia, India, or Russia or Germany—whether their lives shall be happy or base; and all law and all world-policy will be good or bad in so far as the people who make the social laws, or treaties, or leagues of nations are inspired with charity or with cynicism.

For the Christian religion is catholic. It is a fellowship, and because it is a real fellowship it is not afraid to desire the perfect organization of fellowship in all departments of life, because fellowship without organization is a mockery which cannot endure. As yet it has not succeeded in organizing itself, except in disunited fragments; but the Christian spirit has set itself from the beginning against the anarchic principle of mere individual salvation and self-culture; it has always struggled hard for the ideal, and has made magnificent experiments,