And, thirdly, we need to have a larger sympathy with those to whom we go. It is not the passion of bigotry which will enable us to deliver our message. Let us remind ourselves again that we are one with all who love the Lord in sincerity and truth. If we expect others to understand us, let us be at least as patient in seeking to understand them. Let us beware of the sectarian spirit. Let us emphasize the fundamentals which we hold in common with others even more than our own distinctive views. The more we have to give, the more vital does it become that we should “walk humbly with our God.” The spiritual pride which writes off the achievements of our ancestors on the credit side of our own balance sheet is perhaps one of the chief hindrances to our paying the debt which we owe to the Church.
And, fourthly, we need a corporate sense of our mission and message. If only each of us in this great representative gathering might be given afresh the child-like spirit, and if all together we might hear once more the call of the Master ring out clear and strong to our Society, might not even the early triumphs of Quakerism be surpassed? A new age needs indeed a new spirit. We are not called to give just the same thing as was given by our spiritual forefathers; but we are called each and all to give our best, without stint, without counting the cost, and, unless we do, we cannot be true to that which God has given us.
Out of the dedicated spirit of the body as a whole there will be born a race of apostles. To each is given his ministry—“To some apostles.” We must have such if our message is to ring forth with its ancient power and in new and living tones. It should be the peculiar task of the Society of Friends to raise up apostles. We need to travail in pain till they be born, and the pain is to be the long sorrow of a world’s need which God has given us the ability to meet, and which for Christ’s sake we will make our own.
When I think of these great needs around me, I can sometimes feel that the illusion lifts and “the _truth_ lies bare.” In the Church and beyond its borders I seem to hear the yearning cry of those who aspire and whose aspirations are checked and thwarted: the bitter murmurings of those who have lost their confidence in organized Christianity and have been soured and alienated where they should have found sympathy and help: the warring and discordant notes of those who quarrel and misunderstand each other where they should unite firmly to represent Christ to the world: the perplexed questionings of those who seek to steer a straight course through the maze of modern life, and who have no certain guide: the weary sigh of those for whom life is too rapid and who have no time to turn inward and find their peace in Christ: the almost stifled sob of the souls that are cramped by the pressure of a materialistic view of life, or by the crushing weight of a world that leaves out God.