If one of the great saints of the early Church had been told that in the year 1915 the world would still be waiting for the final consummation, and had tried to conceive the life of men and nations as it would be after that long period of Christian influence, what would his conception have been? Surely he would have expected that all nations would be linked together in the Holy Communion, the Fellowship of Saints. Roman, Spaniard, African, Syrian, those strange Germans, and the barbarous Britons who lived in the remotest corner of the earth, might have maintained their own varieties of culture, but each would find his joy and pride in offering his contribution to the life of the whole family of nations. Rooted in knowledge of the love of God, their life would grow luxuriantly and bear fruit in love of one another and service of the common cause. Inspiring each and knitting all together, the Holy Catholic Church, fulfilling itself in service of the world, would gather up all this exuberance of life and love into itself, and present it to the God and Father of mankind in unceasing adoration. But the world in 1915 is not in the least like that. The old man of our selfish nature, selfish himself and therefore supposing that others must be selfish too, so that he relies upon the methods of cajolery and coercion, has indeed received the kiss of Christ; and while that kiss burns in his heart, so that sometimes he is roused to an aspiration after an order of things altogether different, his opinions and his conduct remain fundamentally unchanged. And the contrast between what is and what might have been is due in part, at least, to the failure of the Church to be true to its own commission. It is also because of this that no practical man dreams of turning to the Church to find the way out from the intolerable situation into which the nations have drifted. An eminent politician is reported to have defined the Church on a recent occasion in the following terms: "The Church is, I suppose, a voluntary organisation for the maintenance of public worship in the interest of those who desire to join in it." And it is to be feared that many people regard it in some such way as that. But of course the Church is nothing of the kind; the Church is the Body of Christ.