ABSTRACT
Nowadays she is called upon to find a new style for her presence in the world. A presence founded on prestige, exercising an authority whose superiority was acknowledged even on the level of law, may have been acceptable and indeed required in an age of unanimity in religion. When no other voice but the Church’s taught men how they should walk, no other arm but hers upheld them, they accepted her not only as the messenger of Jesus Christ but, within the structure of society on this earth and at the very apex of its social organization, as an authority endowed with privileges, splendour, and the means of action that befitted her station. But now men have taken over the ordering of the affairs of the world and become so engrossed by them that they can no longer find interest for anything else. The world has lost the spiritual unity of ancient Christendom; it is divided, and its divisions are in all probability final. Moreover increased production of the means of comfortable living involves men in such
that even as they become kings they are in danger of losing the health that was theirs in a less affluent and exalted position.
