Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/252

268 the disciple to wait, and continue to learn and consider, until he can, with a full conviction, acknowledge himself as a Christian before the congregation. Such, at least, is the case in the Free Church of the Canton Vaud, that daughter of the spirit of Vinet. The Free Church requires that the course of life shall bear witness to the faith; she therefore becomes often enough inquisitorial towards her members. The pastor sometimes excludes from the Lord's table such as he considers unworthy to be present at it. Thus, for example, it has happened in the small church congregations, which, in Lausanne, have gathered themselves around certain preachers, remarkable for their gifts, as well as personal character, and have split off from the great ecclesiastical community. In these small congregations, the individual character and influence of the preacher is of great importance.

I sum up my statements thus: The state, or national church, is good, because it is the national nurse which preserves the old life, and nourishes the new, at the same time that it prevents its degenerating into licentiousness and individual fancies.

The Free Churches are good, because they incite and develop the spiritual life, the free thought, liberate the individual, compel him to self-decision, and they prevent “the mother” from falling to sleep; but both mother and child, both the old and the young, are needed for the people and for the state. They mutually incite each other, and work together, for the full development of the religious consciousness and life.

I now return to my own life in Switzerland. It