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O send out thy light and thy truth: Let them lead me; Let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles. Then will I go up unto the altar of God, Unto God, the gladness of my joy: Yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God, my God. The temple, however, was but a part, and practically a small part, of the institutionalism of religion in this period.
A third question which must be asked is whether institutionalism in practice makes for unity among Christians, or for division. Too often the chief visible sign of the 'corporate idea' of which so much is said, is the rigidity of the spikes which it erects round its own particular fold. The obstacles to acts of reunion (which in no way carry with them the necessity of formal amalgamation) are raised almost exclusively by stiff institutionalists. The much-discussed Kikuyu case has brought this home to everybody. But for these uncompromising Churchmen, Christians of all denominations would be glad enough to meet together at the Lord's table on special occasions like the service which gave rise to this controversy. Anglicans are well aware that the differences of opinion within their body are far greater than those which separate some of them from Protestant Nonconformity, and others of them from Home. Allegiance to this or that denomination is generally an accident of early surroundings. To make these external classifications into barriers which cannot be crossed is either an absurdity or a confession that a Church is a political aggregate. A Roman Monsignor explained,
The entire change of personal and domestic relations and the greater freedom from the institutionalism of semi-civilized communities, e.g., the abandonment of all restriction on divorce, naturally did away with the class of litigation that appeared in certain courts of law dealing with marital or personal grievances.
"I don't like jargon," she said, "particularly the jargon of Christian Science and Theosophy. I love English literature too much for that; and I don't like slang, particularly slang of a brutal order; but I feel a deep sympathy with anybody who is trying, as Mr. Studdert-Kennedy is trying, to put life and power into institutionalism.
Gilman, and partly to the conservatism of its vestry, the institutionalism of St. John's was by no means up to date. No settlement house, with day nurseries, was maintained in the slums. The parish house, built in the early nineties, had its gymnasium hall and class and reading rooms, but was not what in these rapidly moving times would be called modern.
But fanatical institutionalism has been the driving force of Catholicism as a power in the world, from the very first. The Church has lived by its monopolies and conquered by its intolerance. The war has given a further impetus to the fall of this belief, which, with its dogma, Extra ecclesiam nulla salus, was tottering before the crisis came.
These claims may be admitted; but they come very far short of the glorification of institutionalism which we found in the authors quoted a few pages back. The institutionalist, however, may reply that he by no means admits the validity of Sabatier's antithesis between religions of authority and the religion of the Spirit.
The strongest claim of institutionalism to our respect is probably the beneficial restraint which it exercises upon many persons who need moral and intellectual guidance.
A committee was finally appointed consisting of Mr. Parr, Mr. Atterbury, and the rector, to consult architects and to decide upon a site. Hodder began a correspondence with experts in other cities, collected plans, pamphlets, statistics; spent hours with the great child-specialist, Dr. Jarvis, and with certain clergymen who believed in institutionalism as the hope of the future.
The movement, in my opinion, is beginning to break up, and Rome will be the chief gainer. But many of its leaders have been among the glories of the Church of England, and I could never speak of them with disrespect. Catholicism, whether Roman or Anglican, stands to lose heavily by the decay of institutionalism as an article of faith.
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