The prospects for an exchange of values between the East and the West are not particularly bright. The Orient is indeed being “Americanized,” but partly through the policy of Western imperialism exploiting the low living standards of Asia to the advantage of Western industry. There is no powerful movement in the West to dissuade it from its complete trust in physical power as the method of self-realization, and in physical comfort as the way to happiness. Modern religion has not been totally ineffective in qualifying racial arrogance and parochial prejudices. But it has had practically no effect upon the instincts of avarice which dominate Western life. The religious groups which are still ambitious to defy civilization in the name of their faith have a theology which cannot gain the respect of the thoughtful leaders of modern life; and the sins of which they convict modern society are not its real sins. The intellectually emancipated religious groups are too thoroughly acclimatized to the atmosphere of Western life to have any sensitiveness for its imperfections. The greatest hope lies in the missionary enterprise, which through its very effort toward the universalization of the Christian faith has a tendency to strip it of its Occidental accretions, so that it may become intrinsically worthy of its world expansion. The missionary enterprise may thereby contribute as much toward the spiritualization of Western life as toward the regeneration of the East. Its very contact with the East gives it a perspective on the limitations of Western life which churches at home do not possess. There is, of course, the possibility that Western imperialism will so thoroughly discredit the missionary enterprise before it can function in this way that it will lose its whole prestige in the Eastern world. In that case Japan will probably continue to unify and occidentalize Asia in the hope of fighting fire with fire. A small minority of thoughtful missionaries are making a desperate effort to disassociate the missionary enterprise from the politics of Western imperialism in the Orient. Considering the difficulty of their task, they have made commendable progress. Yet if Christianity at home does not become disassociated from and does not qualify the greed of which the Oriental politics of Western nations is but one expression, the heroic efforts of the missionaries may be vain. Men of prudence in the Orient may be willing to concede that ideals have validity even if they are outraged by those who ostensibly accept them. But the final test of ideals must include their ability to qualify human action. If Christian idealism is to be a force which will help to create a unified world culture, capable of destroying the moral limitations of both the Oriental and the Occidental strategy of life, it must detach itself more completely from the temper of Western life even while it seeks to influence the thought of the East. CHAPTER VIII