Page:The empire and the century.djvu/203

 Under the changed circumstances of the newer England of the Empire, may not the strength of a common religion still help to promote the strength of a common civic spirit? Powerful as the bonds of mutual interest may be, the bonds of common sentiment, of common traditions, memories, ideals in the most enduring part of man's life, must be, if not more powerful at some particular moment, at least more permanent. The influences of common religion not only turn the minds of men towards 'home,' and warm their feelings towards the old country, but also bind them together by a tradition which runs deep into the bases of life and far back into the bases of history.

The Christian Church has its own course to take, its own destiny to fulfil; but if there be any truth in the positions thus briefly summarized, the relations between it and the Empire ought to be those of close cooperation. On the one hand, the Empire, if it is wise, will learn to value, for the sake of its own welfare, the work of the Church. So far as it can, within the limits of public policy, it will encourage and facilitate the development of religious influences throughout the Empire. It will not look askance at the missionary, but regard him as in the truest sense an Imperial force. But, on the other hand, the Church must learn to adapt itself to the new responsibilities of Empire. It must learn to think and plan Imperially. It must adjust its point of view to the perspective of a new and wider horizon. It must regard not the nation here at home but the Empire as the real sphere of the future. It must prepare for that future by adopting Imperial problems as its own, and willingly sending out its ablest men to meet them. It must put its best brain and spirit into this wider work. It must do all it can to prevent our own local religious controversies from crossing the seas. It must, by patient foresight, prepare native Churches to develop on their own lines, untrammelled by the limitations of merely British religious history. While retaining its own definite faith as a trust which it holds for posterity, it