What the Church Means to Me

These divisions of the Church mean to me cargo vessels, and if for any reason they can't carry, they should go out of commission. If one is beyond repair or the type has been superseded, it should go out permanently. We continue to run old three-deckers for fighting battles, or Columbian caravels for freighting purposes. It appears to some to cause a temporary setback to fighting efficiency to send a once serviceable ship to the scrap heap, but it is the best and cheapest in the end. In the North Sea fishery I saw hundreds of sailing craft that had helped to make fortunes, that had kept the markets full, and that still had years of life, laid up, and then sold practically for old junk. Why? Simply because swift steam-trawlers had been found to do the work better.

These sub-organizations, as far as I am concerned, are existing merely to help men to work in the spiritual field. They are not like some yachts, just to carry bunting and paint to be admired. As for church affiliation, what I like to see is a hungry man going where he will be fed and get strength. I trust it does not seem flippant to say that I look on all church organizations in the same way, and that the tradition of a long past suggests to me the inefficiency of a dotage, quite as much as the stimulating aroma of potency which, as in the case of some wines, can only be acquired by the lapse of time. Some will say that this Modernism has no sense of obligation, no sense of veneration, makes no allowance for the idiosyncrasies of others. Well, that may be so. I may plead, on the contrary, that what we call the ancient Church was the youthful Church. The Church of the twentieth century is the ancient, grown-up Church.