If individual thought, individual free-will and action, were more generally recognised to be the prime factors by which human evolution is forwarded or deterred; if concern for the preservation of individual advantage were dominated by a desire to promote the welfare of the race; if the willing transmutation by vicarious suffering of the effects of evil into elements of good were more readily accepted as the privilege of the members of the communion of love; we are justified in believing that unnatural suffering and death, with their manifold accompaniment of sorrow and fear, would be gradually eliminated from the lives of men according as they grew into a more perfect wisdom and understanding of the meaning and purpose of life. Like Christ, we must be perfected through suffering. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together, to the end that the in[90]carnate purpose of life may be fulfilled, and that the increasing sum of the spiritual consciousness of creation may be brought into co-operation with the Divine Creator and so actively and willingly share in the divine government of life. [91] V THE VESTURE OF GOD When Paul of Tarsus reproved the men of Athens for ignorantly worshipping an unknown God, he was virtually denouncing the tendency towards idolatry which is inherent in all religious symbolism. Public worship of an unknown and unseen God must be more or less symbolic in order to express any particular idea of the nature of the supposed divinity. But a stranger in a strange land, uninitiated into the symbolism of the religious faith there practised, is apt to infer idolatry in the ritual he witnesses simply because he cannot discriminate between the thing seen and its esoteric significance. The programme of Christianity delivered by St Paul to the Athenians practically excluded ceremony as a necessary accompani[92]ment of worship. He preached a known God, a seen God, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, and requiring no likening unto gold, silver, or stone images, graven by art and men's devices. It is noteworthy that every religion in its infancy is but sparely attended by forms and ceremonies, the more or less elaborate ritual that accompanies its subsequent growth being an almost inevitable result of its consolidation into a definite creed which shall stand as the supposed likeness of its original spiritual conception. This rise of ritual is largely responsible for the need of periodical reform which is a common occurrence in the development of every religion that has outlived its infancy. The history of Christianity, with which alone we have here to deal, affords recurring examples of agitation directed against a perverted religious symbolism—a dangerous degeneration which, by crushing the spirit beneath the letter of observance, leads to hypocritical and idolatrous practices. [93]