[The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day by Evelyn Underhill]@TWC D-Link bookThe Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day CHAPTER V 43/47
To some extent this is already done: traditionalism and liberalism, sacramentalism, revivalism, quietism, have each their existing cults.
But these varying types of church now appear as competitors, too often hostile; not as the complementary and graded expressions of one life, each having truth in the relative though none in the absolute sense.
Did we more openly acknowledge the character of that life, the historic Churches would no longer invite the sophisticated to play down to their own primitive fantasies; to sing meaningless hymns and recite vindictive psalms, or lull themselves by the recitation of litany or rosary which, admirable as the instruments of suggestion, are inadequate expressions of the awakened spiritual life.
On the one hand, they would not require the simple to express their corporate religious feeling in Elizabethan English or Patristic Latin; on the other, expect the educated to accept at face-value symbols of which the unreal character is patent to them. Nor would they represent these activities as possessing absolute value in themselves. To join in simplicity and without criticism in the common worship, humbly receiving its good influences, is one thing.
This is like the drill of the loyal soldier; welding him to his neighbours, giving him the corporate spirit and forming in him the habits he needs.
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