THE EXPANSION OF RELIGION 267 



by the consciousness of God and the desire to do his will. " In those 

 days/' says the first record of his mission, " Jesus came into Galilee 

 preaching the kingdom of God." The words which thus begin the 

 gospels are words written for the present age. In these days also 

 religion is called from its provincialism to preach the gospel of the 

 kingdom of God. 



And how is it, finally, that this expansion of religion is to proceed 

 in this or in any age? What is to be the instrument of this enlarge- 

 ment, the dynamic of the kingdom of God? It has been sought in 

 many ways consistent with the spirit of the last century, through 

 instruction in doctrine, through ecclesiastical machinery, through 

 the discipline and organization of the Church; and all these enter- 

 prises have their place as preparations for the kingdom. When, 

 however, one recalls the teaching of Jesus, he is astonished to observe 

 how slightly the Master concerned himself for the machinery of his 

 mission. He did not organize or discipline or even instruct in a 

 deliberate form. He communicated himself. He trusted every- 

 thing to the contagion of personality. He left all else to those who 

 had been touched by him, perfectly sure that the Holy Spirit which 

 the Father would send in his name would lead them into all truth. 

 It is the same to-day. The kingdom of God, the expansion of religion 

 through all the circles of human need, is not to be a new achieve- 

 ment of mechanism, but a new experience of the Holy Spirit. Per- 

 sonal religion is the key to social religion. It inherits the past, but 

 it creates the future. Other centuries have converted the soul of the 

 individual; the problem of the present age is to apply the converted 

 soul to the conversion of the soul of the world. " I sanctify myself," 

 said Jesus, it was the secret of his power, but he goes on to say, 

 " For their sakes I sanctify myself." The sanctified life becomes the 

 serviceable life, and in that perfect service finds its perfect freedom. 

 The religious life rises, like some secluded stream, in the quiet con- 

 sciousness of the single soul; yet it hurries down toward the world 

 of men, as though it asked what further work it had to do. It 

 sanctifies itself for others' sakes, and as it flows it joins with many 

 another stream hastening like itself. Below waits the great plain 

 of the world, with its busy multitudes and their unsanctified toil, 

 thirsty for some spiritual meaning in their flat, dull lives. Out 

 into the plain of human life flows the expanding stream of religion. 

 It is no foreign land which it thus waters, but the valley whither, 

 by the law of its own motion, it was meant to run. Here is the 

 work which it was meant to do. This is the end for which the 

 springs in the wilderness pour forth their unpolluted life. The 

 enlarging stream finds at last the purpose of its own creation, and 

 as it flows sings to itself the Master's message, " I am coming that 

 these may have my life and may have it abundantly." 



