THE EXPANSION OF RELIGION 259 



a mechanical and external work to do. Does not such a period, 

 however, though it be essential in the history of religion, bear on its 

 very face the mark of preparatoriness, as though it were confessedly 

 preliminary to a new movement of a new time? Does not the 

 mechanism of nature, which has been so impressively taught by the 

 nineteenth century, begin to disclose within itself a spiritual move- 

 ment of which natural law is the symbol and expression? Is not 

 the key of modern thought to be found in the dictum of Lotze, that 

 mechanism in the universe is everywhere essential, yet everywhere 

 subordinate? Are not the vast organizations of politics and in- 

 dustry which have been devised within one generation now offering 

 to the next generation a new possibility of industrial stability and 

 peace? Is society a merely biological organism, as we were taught 

 twenty years ago, or does the biological analogy, by its very insuffi- 

 ciency disclose the essentially ethical nature of social forms? These 

 are the new aspects of the world and its affairs which meet us as the 

 new century begins. A spiritual significance within the machinery 

 of the world, a penetration of the mechanical by the ideal, a renais- 

 sance of ethical idealism, these are the ways that now lie open to 

 the philosophy and sociology of the time. The nineteenth century 

 had for its theme the social body; the twentieth century has for its 

 theme the social soul. 



The same demand for the spiritualization and expansion of the 

 task is now laid upon religion. I have spoken of this as the religious 

 opportunity of the present time. I had almost said that it was the 

 last opportunity of organized religion. If the churches remain en- 

 snared in the mechanism of their work, if they live in the era of organi- 

 zation while philosophy and sociology are advancing to the era of spir- 

 itualization, if they remain a separate, detached, provincial group, 

 when the whole secular life of the world is learning the lessons of 

 solidarity, fraternity, organic unity, then they must expect to forfeit 

 the right to primacy among the creative influences of the new world 

 and to become simply the refuges of the disheartened and the senti- 

 mental. Religion in all ages has the same central reality, the com- 

 munion of the individual soul with God. The teaching of Jesus 

 was fundamentally for the individual. It sought the one sheep; 

 it rejoiced over each one that was found. The first discovery of 

 Jesus was the significance of the individual. The first duty of the 

 Christian is to practice the presence of God. All this makes a reli- 

 gious heritage which no change of the centuries can alienate or 

 supplant. Religion, if possessed at all, is a personal possession. 

 " The kingdom of God is within you." Because the centre, however, 

 is the same, the circumference is not unchangeable. Religion does 

 not become less personal because it becomes more universal. Per- 

 sonal religion is not antiquated or outgrown because personal religion 



