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CHAPTER XIII

SOCIAL INSt.i.tUTIONS

In last chapter we dealt with the rights and duties of the individual as they are conditioned by his relation to himself, others, and to G.o.d.

In this chapter it remains to speak more particularly of the organised inst.i.tutions of society in which the moral life is manifested, and by means of which character is moulded. These are the Family, the State, and the Church. These three types of society, though distinguishable, are closely allied. At first, indeed, they were identical. Human society had its origin, most probably, in a primitive condition in which domestic, political, and religious ends were one. Even in modern life Family, State, and Church do not stand for separate interests. So far from their aims colliding they are mutually helpful. An individual may be a member of all three at one time. From a Christian point of view each is a divine inst.i.tution invested with a sacred worth and a holy function, and ordained of G.o.d for the advancement of His kingdom.

I

_The Family_ is the fountain-head of all the other social groups, 'the cell of the social organism.' Man enters the world not as an isolated being, but by descent and generation. In the family each is cradled and nurtured, and by the domestic environment character is developed.

The family has a profound value for the nation. Citizenship rests on the sanct.i.ty of the home. When the fire on the hearth is quenched, the vigour of a people dies.

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1. Investigations of great interest and value have been pursued in recent years regarding the origin and evolution of the family. However far back the natural history of the race is carried, it seems scarcely possible to resist the conclusion that some form of family relationship is coeval with human life. Widely as social arrangements differ in detail among savage peoples, arbitrary promiscuity can nowhere be detected. Certain laws of domestication have been invariably found to exist, based upon definite social and moral restrictions universally acknowledged and rigidly enforced. Two primitive conditions are present wherever man is found--the tribe and the family. If the family is never present without the tribe, the tribe is never discovered without 'those intra-tribal distinctions and s.e.xual regulations which lie at the bottom of the inst.i.tution of the family.'[1] Westermarck indeed says that 'the evidence we possess tends to show that among our earliest human ancestors the family and not the tribe formed the nucleus of every social group, and in many cases was itself perhaps the only social group. The tie that kept together husband and wife, parents and children, was, if not the only, at least the princ.i.p.al factor in the earliest forms of man's social life.'[2] If the family had been an artificial convention called into being by human will and ingenuity, it might conceivably be destroyed by the same factors. But whatever arguments may be adduced for the abolition of marriage and family life to-day, the appeal to primitive history is not one of them.

On the contrary the earliest forms of society show that the family is no invention, that it has existed as long as man himself, and that all social evolution has been a struggle for the preservation of its most valuable features.[3]

2. If, even in early times, and especially among the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, the family was an important factor in national development, it has been infinitely more so {222} since the advent of Christianity.

Christ did not create this relationship. He found it in existence when He came to the earth. But He invested it with a new ethical value. He laid upon it His consecrating touch, and made it the vehicle of all that is most tender and true in human affection, so that among Christian people to-day no word is fraught with such hallowed a.s.sociations as the word 'home.' This He did both by example and teaching. As a member of a human family Himself, He partic.i.p.ated in its experiences and duties. He spent His early years in the home of Nazareth, and was subject unto His parents. He manifested His glory at a marriage feast. By the grave of Lazarus He mingled His tears with those of the sorrowing sisters of Bethany. He had a tender regard for little children, and when mothers brought their infants to Him He welcomed them with gracious encouragement, and, taking the little ones in His arms, blessed them, thus consecrating for all time both childhood and motherhood. Throughout His life there are indications of His deep reverence and affection for her who was His mother, and with His latest breath he confided her to the care of His beloved disciple.

There are pa.s.sages indeed which seem to indicate a depreciation of family relationships.[4] The most important of these are the sayings which deal with the home connections of those whom He called to special discipleship.[5] Not only are father and mother to be loved less than He, but even in comparison with Himself are to be hated.[6] Among the sacrifices His servants must be ready to make is the surrender of the home.[7] But these references ought to be taken in conjunction with, and read in the light of, His more general att.i.tude to the claims of kindred. It was not His indifference to, but His profound regard for, home ties that drew from Him these words. He knew that affection may narrow as well as widen the heart, and that our {223} tenderest intimacies may bring our most dangerous temptations. There are moments in the history of the heart when the lesser claim must yield to the greater. For the Son of Man Himself, there were interests higher even than those of the family. Some men, perhaps even most, are able to fulfil their vocation without a surrender of the joys of kinship. But others are called to a wider sphere and a harder task. For the sake of the larger brotherhood of man, Jesus found it necessary to renounce the intimacies of home. What it cost Him to do so we, who cannot fathom the depth of His love, know not. Even such an abandonment did He demand of His first disciples. And for the follower of Christ still there must be the same willingness to make the complete sacrifice of everything, even of home and kindred, if they stand in the way of devotion to the kingdom of G.o.d.[8]

(1) Our Lord's direct statements regarding the nature of the family leave us in no doubt as to the high place it holds in His conception of life. Marriage, upon which the family rests, is, according to Jesus, the divinely ordained life-union of a man and woman. In His quotation from Genesis He makes reference to that mysterious attraction, deeply founded in the very nature of man, by which members of the opposite s.e.x are drawn to each other. But while acknowledging the sensuous element in marriage, He lifts it up into the spiritual realm and trans.m.u.tes it into a symbol of soul-communion. Our Lord does not derive the sanction of wedded life from Mosaic legislation. Still less does He permit it as a concession to human frailty. It has its ground in creation itself, and while therefore it is the most natural of earthly relationships it is of G.o.d's making. To the true ideal of marriage there are several features which our Lord regards as indispensable.

(_a_) It must be _monogamous_, the fusion of two distinct personalities. 'They two shall be one flesh.' Mutual self-impartation demands that the union should be an exclusive one. (_b_) It is a _union of equality_. Neither {224} personality is to be suppressed.

The wedded are partners who share one another's inmost thoughts and most cherished purposes. But this claim of equality does not exclude but rather include the different functions which, by reason of s.e.x and const.i.tution, each is enabled to exercise. 'Woman is not undeveloped man but diverse.' And it is in diversity that true unity consists.

Both will best realise their personality in seeking the perfection of one another. (_c_) It is a _permanent_ union, indissoluble till the parting of death. The only exception which Christ acknowledges is that form of infidelity which _ipso facto_ has already ruptured the sacred bond.[9] According to Jesus marriage is clearly intended by G.o.d to involve sacred and permanent obligations, a covenant with G.o.d, as well as with one another, which dare not be set aside at the dictate of a whim or pa.s.sion. The positive principle underlying this declaration against divorce is the spirit of universal love that forbids that the wife should be treated, as was the case among the dissolute of our Lord's time, as a chattel or slave. Nothing could be more abhorrent to Christian sentiment than the modern doctrine of 'leasehold marriage'

advocated by some.[10] It has been ingeniously suggested that the record of marital unrest and divorce in America, shameful as it is, may not be in many cases altogether an evil. The very demand to annul a union in which reverence and affection have been forfeited may spring from a growing desire to realise the true ideal of marriage.[11] (_d_) Finally, it is a _spiritual_ union. It is something more than a legal contract, or even an ecclesiastical ordinance. The State must indeed safeguard the civil rights of the parties to the compact, and the Church's ceremony ought to be sought as the expression of divine blessing and approval. But of themselves these do not const.i.tute the inner tie which makes the twain one, and binds them together amid all the chances and changes of this earthly life.[12] In the teaching of both Christ and {225} the apostles marriage is presented as a high vocation, ordained by G.o.d for the enrichment of character, and invested with a holy symbolism. According to St. Paul it is the emblem of the mystic union of Christ and His Church, and is overshadowed by the presence of G.o.d, who is the archetype of those sacred ideas which we a.s.sociate with the name of fatherhood.

(2) Though marriage is the most personal of all forms of social intercourse, there are many varied and intricate interests involved which require _legal recognition_ and adjustment. Questions as to the legitimacy of offspring, the inheritance of property, the status and rights of the contracting parties, come within the domain of law. The State punishes bigamy, and forbids marriage within certain degrees of consanguinity. Many contend that the State should go further, and prevent all unions which endanger the physical vigour and efficiency of the coming generation. It is undoubtedly true that the government has a right to protect its people against actions which tend to the deterioration of the race. To permit those to marry who are suffering from certain maladies of mind or body is to commit a grave crime against society. But care must be taken lest we unduly interfere with the deeper spiritual sympathies and affections upon which a true union is founded. In agitating for State control in the mating of the physically fit, the champions of eugenics are apt to exaggerate the materialistic side of marriage, and overlook those qualities of heart and mind which are not less important for the well-being of the race.

In the discipline of humanity weakness and suffering are a.s.sets which the world could ill afford to lose.[13]

(3) In modern times the inst.i.tution of marriage is menaced by two opposite forces; on the one hand, by a revolutionary type of socialism, and on the other, by the reactionary influence of self-interested individualism. (_a_) It is contended by some advanced socialists that among {226} the poor and the toiling home life is practically non-existent; indeed, under present industrial conditions, impossible.

Marriage and separate family life are insuperable barriers, it is said, to corporate unity and social progress. It is but fair to add that this extreme view is now largely repudiated by the most enlightened advocates of a new social order, who are contending, they tell us, not for the abolition, but for the betterment, of domestic conditions.[14]

(_b_) The stability of social life is being threatened even more seriously by a self-centred individualism. Marriage is considered as a merely temporary arrangement which may be terminated at will. It is contended that divorce should be granted on the easiest terms, and the most trifling reasons are seriously put forward as legitimate grounds for the annulling of the holiest of vows. Without discussing these disintegrating influences, it is enough to say that the trend of history is against any radical tampering with the inst.i.tution of marriage, and any attempt to disparage the sanct.i.ty of the home or belittle domestic obligations would be to poison at its springs the moral life of man.

3. The duties of the various members of the family are explicitly, if briefly, stated in the apostolic epistles. They are valid for all times and conditions. Though they may be easily elaborated they cannot well be improved. All home obligations are to be fulfilled _in_ and _unto_ the Lord. The fear of G.o.d is to inspire the nurture of children, and to sanctify the lowliest services of the household.

Authority is to be blended with affection. (1) _Parents_ are not to provoke their children by harsh and despotic rule, nor yet to spoil them by soft indulgence. _Children_ are to render obedience, and, when able, to contribute to the support of their parents.[15] Masters are to treat their servants with equity and respect. Servants are exhorted to show fidelity. In short all the relationships of the household are to be hallowed by the spirit of Christian love.

Many questions relative to the family arise, over which {227} we may not linger. One might speak of the effect of industrial conditions upon domestic life, the employment of women and children in factories, the evil of sweating, the problem of our city slums, and, generally, of the need of improved environment in order that our labouring cla.s.ses may have a chance of a healthier and purer home existence. Legislation can do much. But even law is ineffective to achieve the highest ends if it is not backed by the public conscience. The final solution of the problem of the family rests not in conditions but in character, not in environment but in education, in the kind of men we are rearing.

(2) This century has been called the _woman's_ century. And certainly there is an obvious trend to-day towards acknowledgment, in all departments of life, of women's equality with men. There is, however, a difference of opinion as to what that equality should mean; and there seems to be a danger in some quarters of overlooking the essential difference of the s.e.xes. No people can achieve what it ought while its wives and mothers are degraded or denied their rights. For her own sake, as well as for the weal of the race, whatever is needful to enable woman to attain to her n.o.blest womanhood must be unhesitatingly granted.[16]

(3) But this is even more the _children's_ era. A new sense of reverence for the child is one of the most promising notes of our age, and the problems arising out of the care and education of the young have created the new sciences of pedagogy and child-psychology. Regard for child-life owes its inspiration directly to the teaching of Christ.

The child in the simplicity of its nature and innocence of its dependence is, according to the Master, the perfect pattern of those who seek after G.o.d. It is true that in the art of antiquity child-life was frequently represented. But as Burckhardt says it was the drollery and playfulness, even the quarrelsomeness and stealth, and above all the l.u.s.ty health and animal vigour of young life that was depicted.

Ancient art did not behold in the child the prophecy of a new and purer world. Moreover, it was aesthetic {228} feeling and not real sympathy with childhood which animated this movement. As time went on the teaching of Christ on this subject was strangely neglected, and the history of the treatment of the young is a tragic tale of neglect and suffering. Only now are we recovering the lost message of Jesus in regard to the child, and we are beginning to realise that infancy and youth have their rights, and demand of the world both care and affection. Ours sons and daughters are the nation's a.s.sets. Yet it is a parent's question even more than the State's. In a deeper sense than we imagine children are the creation of their parents. It is the effect of soul upon soul, the mother's touch and look, the father's words and ways, that kindle into flame the dull material of humanity, and begin that second birth which should be the anxiety and glory of parenthood. But if the parent makes the child, scarcely less true is it that the child makes the parent. In the give and take of home life a new world is created. When a father really looks into his child's eye he is not as he was before.[17] Indispensable as is the State's education of the young, there is an important part which the community cannot undertake, and there is a danger in curbing individuality by a stereotyped method of instruction. 'All social enactments,' says Harnack, 'have a tendency to circ.u.mscribe the activities of the individual. If we unduly fetter the free play of individual effort we break the mainspring of progress and enterprise, and create a state of social immobility which is the antecedent of national decay.'[18]

Youth ought to be taught self-reliance and strenuousness of will; and this is a work which can only be done in the home by the firm yet kindly influence of the parents. But there is another aspect of the home problem not less pressing. The want of training in working-cla.s.s families is largely answerable for the waifs and strays with which our cities team. Even in middle-cla.s.s households there are indications of a lack not only of discipline, but of {229} that kindly sympathy and affectionate counsel on the part of parents, and of reverence and frankness in the children; with the result that the young people, missing the attachment and interest which the home should supply, seek their satisfaction outside the domestic circle, often with the most disastrous results. The problem of the family is thus the problem of nurturing the very seeds of the moral life. Within the precincts of the nation's homes the future of the commonwealth is being determined.

II

1. The _State_ is the supreme controller of social relationships. As distinguished from the family and the Church, it is the realm of organised force working for social ends. Its purpose is to secure the conditions of life essential to order and progress, and it can fulfil its function only as it is endowed with power to enforce its authority.

The interference of the State with the liberty of the individual has created a reaction in two opposite quarters towards complete abrogation of all State compulsion. On the one side Tolstoy pleads for the removal of force, because it violates the principle of love and subverts the teaching of Jesus--'Resist not evil.' Militant anarchism as the other extreme demands the abrogation of authority, because it believes that restraint hinders progress and happiness, and that if governmental force were abolished individuals would be best able to take care of themselves. The aim of anarchism is to destroy force by force; the aim of Tolstoy is to allow force to do its worst. Such a spirit of non-resistance would mean the overthrow of all security, and the reversion to wild lawlessness. It is an utter travesty of Christ's teaching. Extremes meet. Violence and servility join hands.

Anarchism and Tolstoyism reveal the total bankruptcy of unrestricted individualism.

The social order for which the State stands is not so much an interference with the freedom of the subject as the condition under which alone individual liberty can be preserved. {230} The view, however, that the State is an artificial relationship into which men voluntarily enter in order to limit their selfish instincts and to secure their mutual advantages--the theory of the 'social contract'--has been discarded in modern times as a fiction of the imagination. It is not of his own choice that the individual becomes a member of society. He is born into it. Man is not a whole in himself.

He is only complete in his fellows. As he serves others he serves himself. But men are not the unconscious functions of a mechanical system. They are free, living personalities, united by a sense of human obligation and kindredship. The State is more than a physical organism. It is a community of moral aims and ideals. Even law, which is the soul of the State, is itself the embodiment of a moral principle; and the commonwealth stands for a great ethical idea, to the fulfilment of which all its citizens are called upon to contribute.

2. The reciprocal duties of the State and its citizens receive comparatively little prominence in the New Testament. But they are never treated with disparagement or contempt. During our Lord's earthly life the supreme power belonged to the Roman Empire. Though Jesus had to suffer much at the hands of those in authority, His habitual att.i.tude was one of respect. He lived in obedience to the government of the country, and acknowledged the right of Caesar to legislate and levy taxes in his own province. While giving all deference to the State officials before whom He was brought, He did not hesitate to remind them of the ideal of truth and justice of which they were the chosen representatives.[19] St. Paul's teaching is in harmony with his Master's, and is indeed an expansion of it.[20] 'The powers that be are ordained of G.o.d. Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute.' Beyond, however, enjoining the necessity of work as a means of independence, and recommending that each should remain in the sphere in which he has been placed, and perform conscientiously the duties of his calling, we {231} find little direct reference in the Epistles to the matter of citizenship. But as has been truly said 'the citizen has but to stand in his station, and perform its duties, in order to fulfil the demands of citizenship.'[21]

St. Paul's insistence therefore upon the personal fidelity of every man to the duties of his sphere goes far to recognise that spirit of reciprocal service which is the fundamental idea of the commonwealth.

3. Of the two extreme views as to the meaning of the State between which the verdict of history has wavered--that of Augustine, who regarded the State as the result of man's sinful condition and as the direct ant.i.thesis of the kingdom of G.o.d; and that of Hegel, who saw in it the highest ethical form of society, the realisation of the moral ideal--the view of St. Paul may be said to have approximated more nearly to the latter. Writing to the Christians at Rome Paul does not suggest that it was merely for prudence' sake that they should give to the Imperial Power unquestioning obedience. He appeals to the loftiest motives. All authority is of G.o.d in its origin and ultimate purpose.

What does it matter to him whether Nero be a devil or a saint? He is the prince upon the throne. He is the symbol of divine authority, 'the minister of G.o.d to thee for good.' As a Christian Paul looks beyond the temporal world-power as actually existing. Whatever particular form it may a.s.sume, he sees in the State and its rulers only the expression of G.o.d's will. Rome is His agent, oppressive, and, it may be, unjust, but still the channel through which for the moment the Almighty works for the furtherance of His purposes.[22]

The conception of the State as thus formulated involves a twofold obligation--of the State towards its citizens, and of its citizens towards the State.

(1) As the embodiment of public right the State owes protection to its subjects, guarding individual privileges and prohibiting such actions as interfere with the general {232} good. Its functions, however, are not confined to restrictive measures. Its duty is not only to protect the rights of the individual, but to create and maintain such conditions of life as are essential to the development of personality.

In its own interests it is bound to foster the growth of character, and to promote culture and social well-being. In modern times we look to the State not only to protect life and property, but to secure for each individual and for all cla.s.ses of men that basis of material well-being on which alone life in its truest sense can be built up. The government must therefore strike some kind of balance between the extremes of individualism and socialism. While the old theory of _laissez-faire_, which would permit every man to follow his own individual bent without regard to the interests of others, has been generally repudiated, there is still a cla.s.s of politicians who ridicule the 'night watchman' idea of the State as La.s.salle calls it.

'Let there be as little State as possible,' exclaims Nietzsche.

According to such thinkers the State has only negative functions. The best government is that which governs least, and allows the utmost scope to untrammelled individual enterprise. But if there is a tendency on the part of some to return to the individualistic principle, the 'paternal' idea as espoused by others is being carried to the verge of socialism. The function of the State is stretched almost to breaking point when it is conceived as the 'guardian angel'

who accompanies and guards with perpetual oversight the whole life of the individual from the cradle to the grave. Many of the more cautious writers[23] of the day are exposing the dangers which lurk in the bureaucratic system of government. This tendency is apt to crush individual enterprise, and cause men to place entire reliance upon external aid and centralised power. It is indeed difficult to draw a fast line of demarcation between purely individual and social ends.

There are obviously primary interests belonging to society as a whole which the State, if it is to be the instrument of the common good, ought to control; certain {233} activities which, if permitted as monopolies, become a menace to the community, and which can be satisfactorily conducted only as departments of the State. National life is a unity, and it can only maintain its integrity as it secures for all its const.i.tuents, justice, equity before the law, and freedom of each to be himself. The State ought to protect those who in the compet.i.tive struggle of the modern industrial system find themselves at a hopeless disadvantage. It is the duty of the commonwealth to secure for each the opportunity to become what he is capable of being, and to fulfil the functions for which he is best fitted. The State cannot make men moral, but it can interfere with existing conditions so as to make the moral life easier for its citizens. Criminal law cannot create saints, but it can punish evil-doers and counteract the forces of lawlessness which threaten the social order. It cannot legislate within the domain of motive, but it can encourage self-restraint and thrift, honesty and temperance. It cannot actually intermeddle with the sanct.i.ty of the home, or a.s.sume the role of paternal authority, but it can insist upon the fulfilment of the conditions of decency and propriety; it can condemn insanitary dwellings, suppress traffic in vice, supervise unhealthy trades, protect the life and health of workmen, and, generally, devise means for the culture and the advancement, intellectually and morally, of the people. The State in some degree embodies the public conscience, and as such it has the prerogative of awakening and stimulating the consciences of individuals. As a divine inst.i.tution it is one of the channels through which G.o.d makes His will known to man. Law has an ethical import, and the State which is founded upon just and beneficent laws moulds the customs and forms the characters of its citizens.

(2) But if the State is to fulfil its ideal function it must rely upon the general co-operation of its citizens. The measure of its success or failure will depend upon the extent to which an enlightened sense of moral obligation prevails in the community. Men must rise above their {234} own immediate interests and realise their corporate being.

Government makes its will dominant through the voice of the people. It cannot legislate beyond the sympathies of its const.i.tuents. As the individuals are, so the commonwealth will be. Civil duties vary according to the qualifications and opportunities of individuals. But certain general obligations rest upon all.

(_a_) It is the duty of all to take an _interest in public affairs_.

What concerns us collectively is the concern of each. Everything that touches the public good should be made a matter of intelligent and watchful interest by all. (_b_) It is the duty of all to _conform to the laws_ of the country. It is possible that a particular enactment may conflict with the dictates of conscience, and it may be necessary to protest against what seems to be an injustice. No rule can be laid down for exceptional cases. Generally it will be best to submit to the wrong, while at the same time using all legitimate means to secure the repeal of the obnoxious law. And if they will revolt, martyrs must not complain nor be unready to submit to the penalties involved. (_c_) It is the further duty of all to take some _personal part_ in the government--if not by active service, at least by the conscientious recording of one's vote. Christians must not leave the direction of the nation's affairs to non-Christians. The spirit of Christ forbids moral indifference to anything human. All are not fitted for, or called upon to take, public office; but it is inc.u.mbent upon every man to maintain an intelligent public spirit, and to exercise all the duties of good citizenship. It has been truly said that they who give most to the State get most from the State. It is the men who play their part as active citizens working for the nation's cause who enrich their own lives and reap the harvest of a full existence. Not by withdrawal from social service, but in untiring labour for their country's weal, shall men win for themselves and their brethren the fruits of liberty and peace. For nations as for men emanc.i.p.ation may come with a stroke, but freedom can be earned only by strenuous and united toil.

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(3) Already these ideals have begun to take shape. The most significant feature of modern times is the growing spirit of democracy.

Men of all cla.s.ses are awakening to their rights, and are accepting their share in the task of social reconstruction. 'We know how the ma.s.ses,' says Eucken, 'are determined to form a mere dependent body of the so-called higher cla.s.ses no longer, but to take the problem of life independently into their own hands.'[24] But while the modern democratic movement is not without its hopeful aspects, it is fraught also with grave perils. It is well that the people should awake to their obligations, and realise the meaning of life, especially in its social implications. But there is a danger that culture may not advance with emanc.i.p.ation, and while the ma.s.ses demand their rights they may not at the same time discern their duties. For rights involve duties, and emanc.i.p.ation, as we have seen, is not liberty. The appeal of the socialistic party is to the equality of all who bear human features. It sounds plausible. But there never has been, nor never can be, such equality. Nature and experience alike reveal a p.r.o.nounced and insuperable inequality among men. The law of diversity strikes deep down into the very origin and const.i.tution of mankind. The equality proclaimed by the French Revolutionists is now regarded as an idle dream. Not equality of nature but equity before the law, justice for all, the opportunity for every man to realise himself and make the most of the life and the gifts which G.o.d has given him--that is the only claim which can be truly made. 'The only idea,' says Eucken, 'which can give to equality any meaning is the conviction that humanity has spiritual relations, that each individual has a value for himself and for the whole because he is a part of a larger spiritual world.'

Hence if democracy is truly to come to its own and fulfil its high vocation, the Pauline figure of the reciprocal influence of the body and its members must be proclaimed anew as the ideal of the body politic--a unity fulfilling itself in difference--an organic life in which the unit finds its {236} place of security-and-service in the whole, and the whole lives in and acts through the individual parts.

If we are to awaken to the high vocation of the Christian state, to realise the possibilities of our membership one with another, a new feeling of manhood and of national brotherhood, a new pride in the community of life, must take possession of our hearts. We need, as one has said, a baptism of religious feeling in our corporate consciousness, a new sense that we are serving G.o.d in serving our fellows, which will hallow and hearten the crusade for health and social happiness, and give to every citizen a sense of spiritual service.

III

Unlike the family and State the _Church_ is the creation of Jesus Christ. It is the witness of His Presence in the world. In its ideal form it is world-wide. The Redemption for which it stands is a good for all men. Though in practice many do not acknowledge its blessing, the Church regards no man beyond its pale of grace. It is set in the midst of the world as the symbol and pledge of G.o.d's universal love.

1. The _Relation of Church and State_ is a difficult question with a long history, and involving much controversy. Whatever view may be held as to their legal connection, their interests can never be regarded as inimical. The Church cannot be indifferent to the action of the State, nor can the State ignore the work of the Church. But since their spheres are not identical nor their aims entirely similar, the trend of modern opinion seems to indicate that, while working in harmony, it is more satisfactory that they should pursue independent paths. There are spiritual ends committed to the Church by its Head over which the civil power has no jurisdiction. On the other hand there are temporal concerns with which ecclesiastical courts have neither the vocation nor the qualifications to deal. Still, the Church, as the organ of Christian thought {237} and activity, has responsibilities with regard to civil matters. While religion is the chief agent in the regeneration of man, religion itself is dependent upon all social means, and the Church must regard with sympathy every effort made by the community for moral improvement. The main function of the Church in this connection is to keep before its members a high ideal of social life, to create a spirit of fidelity in every sphere of activity, and, particularly, to educate men for the tasks of citizenship. The State, on the other hand, as the instrument of civic life, has obligations towards the Church. Its duty is hardly exhausted by observing an att.i.tude of non-interference. In its own interests it is bound, not merely to protect, but encourage the Church in the fulfilment of its immediate aims. Parliament, however, must concede to ecclesiastical bodies complete liberty to govern themselves. The Church, as the inst.i.tution of Christ, claims full autonomy; and the State goes beyond its province when it imposes hampering restrictions which interfere with the exercise of its authority and discipline within its own sphere.

2. As a religious inst.i.tution the Church exists for three main purposes: (1) the _Worship_ of G.o.d and the Edification of its members; (2) the _Witness_ of Christ to Mankind; (3) the _Evangelisation_ of the World.