192 CHURCH UNITY 



social virtue of these the conditions of 

 the olden time, I need no better witness. 

 Here, amidst all the strifes of doctrine or 

 the divisions of sect, I know the real 

 power of a religion which has renewed 

 the conscience. I know that I shall be 

 told of the loose growth of unbelief. But 

 I cannot on this account blind my eyes to 

 the reality. It was the worst feature of 

 the so-called ages of faith that they ob- 

 scured the moral sense of the world ; there 

 could be no awakening of the intelligent 

 belief, of the self-governed will. It is so 

 to-day, and it is the noblest gift of Anglo- 

 Saxon Christianity to mankind that it has 

 planted religion in the conscience, and 

 that out of it has grown the harvest of 

 its civilization." l 



I know it will be said that all this may 

 be true, but that it has very little to do 

 with the power of such a Christianity to 

 touch and transform the faith and life of 

 other races than its own. But what is 

 the larger significance of what is happen- 

 ing among peoples and faiths which, 

 though Christian, have seemed most alien 



1 Dr. Ed. Washburn, Epochs iu Church History, 

 p. 100. 



