(4) But the Church, as a visible organization of men, can be what it is--the city of God, His household and His sanctuary--only because it is pervaded by Christ's life and spirit. The 'stones of the building' are not merely placed side by side of one another, or held together by any external agency of government; they {120} are as branches of a living tree, limbs of a living body. In this recurrent thought, which will be presented to us in another form when St. Paul comes to speak of the head and the body, is the interpretation of all his theory of the Church. It is verily and indeed the extension of the life of Christ. How are we to receive this great and manifold ideal of what the Church means[13]? It is by meditating upon it till St. Paul's conceptions--and not any lower or narrower ones, Roman or Anglican or Nonconformist--become vivid to our minds. Then, knowing what we aim at restoring, we shall seek, in each parish and ecclesiastical centre, to concentrate almost more than to extend the Church, to give it spiritual, moral, and social reality, rather than to multiply a membership which means little. For if men can understand the meaning of the Church, as the city of God, the family of God, the sanctuary of God, in the world, there is little fear that whatever is good in humanity will fail of allegiance to her. The kings of the earth will bring their glory and honour into her, and the nations of the earth shall walk in her light. [1] Sanday and Headlam's _Romans_, pp. 122-124. [2] Hebr. ix. 8. [3] 1 Peter ii. 4. [4] 1 Thess. v. 14; 1 Cor. v.-vi. 11. [5] Col. i. 28. [6] Luke xii. 42. [7] Gal. iv. 11; v. 1. [8] Col. ii. 20-22. [9] Cor. xi. 2, 16. [10] Tit. iii. 10. [11] John ii. 19-21. [12] Acts xv. 16. [13] See app. note D, p. 264, on the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. {121} DIVISION I. Sec. 5. CHAPTER III. _Paul the apostle of catholicity._ [Sidenote: _Paul the apostle of catholicity_]