ABSTRACT
The root problem of the church—as, in a sense, of all organization—is to get the use of the symbol without the abuse. The church is possibly moving toward a differentiated unity, in which the common element will be mainly sentiment—such sentiments as justice, kindness, liberty and service. Like all our higher life, religion lives only by communication and influence. Its sentiments are planted in instinct, but the soil in which they grow is some sort of fostering community life. The iconoclastic fervor against formalism that usefully breaks out from time to time should not make us imagine that religion can dispense with institutions. The Sermon on the Mount appears paradoxical only to sluggish, sensual, formal states of mind and the institutions that embody them. In our times of clearer insight it is good sense and good psychology, expressing that enlargement of the individual to embrace the life of others which takes place at such times.
