5. The conviction became strong that, if the village church would fulfil its mission, it must be a community church. I used to think that the church had simply to do with individuals; that its work was to reach out here and there, to get hold of this one and that one, and that there its work terminated. Society was thought of as a heap of sand, and not as an organism. Man was considered in himself alone, and not in his relations, and so he was misunderstood, for nothing can be truly and fully known except in its relations. But it has become plain that this exclusively individualistic conception was a mistake; that there is such a thing as community life, the life that all the people have in common; that men are bound up together by common interests; that they are members one of another; that "none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself." The conviction became strong that the church should take account of this community life of which the individual is a part; that it should concern itself not only for men, but for _man_; that it should serve the whole community, and that nothing should be foreign to the church or ignored by it that in any way concerns the common life of the people. This conviction did not detract from my estimate of the importance of the spiritual, or of the individual. I still regarded the spiritual part of a man as his most essential part. It was still plain that we have to deal with men as individuals, but I recognized them also in their organic relation to the whole life of the community. Not only were the men's souls to be saved, but the _men_ themselves were to be saved. Not only were the _men_ to be saved and lifted up to a better life, but the _whole community_ was to be saved, and the community life was to be uplifted and placed on a higher plane. Out of these convictions, which grew more and more positive, came the vision whose fulfilment is the subject of this story. III HOW THE VISION CAME