“The fourth and last lecture,” said Judge Dudley, “I would have for the maintaining, explaining, and proving the validity of the ordination of ministers or pastors of the churches, and so their administration of the sacraments or ordinances of religion as the same hath been practised in New England, from the first beginning of it, and so continued at this day. Not that I would in any wise invalidate Episcopal Ordination, as it is commonly called and practised in the Church of England; but I do esteem the method of ordination as practised in Scotland, at Geneva, and among dissenters in England, and in the churches in this country, to be very safe, Scriptural, and valid; and that the great Head of the Church, by his blessed spirit, hath owned, sanctified, and blessed them accordingly, and will continue to do so to the end of the World. Amen.”

Most current references to European Congresses prior to the one now sitting in Paris go no farther back than the Congress of Vienna in 1815. These references generally suggest that, whatever may have been done at Vienna, this we do not propose to do at Paris. The implication is that the European world has been running on the wrong track, and that now it is the mission of somebody to set it right and start it anew on wiser and safer lines. Students of history, however, know that Vienna and Paris mark only two stages in a long succession of efforts to bring the peoples of Europe into some kind of harmonious working together for common ends. The terminology of these attempts, the immediate interests involved, vary greatly, so greatly that the casual reader of history easily fails to recognize the community of purpose; but to one who has in mind the fundamental principle of historic continuity the chain of ideas is fairly distinct and complete.

The individual's attitude toward the Determiner of Destiny, which is religion, has always an essentially practical coloring. It involves a belief, to be sure, but this belief is never a matter of pure theory; it bears a reference, more or less explicit, to the fate of the individual's values. Hence in nearly every religion which history has studied or anthropology discovered, the question of the future in store for the individual believer has been one of prime importance. The content of this belief is a question for the theologian and the historian of religion; the psychologist, however, may be able to throw some light on the related question why people believe, or fail to believe, in immortality at all. What, in short, are the psychological sources from which this belief springs, and what are the leading types of this belief?

The basis of theistic belief is fortunately broader than the theistic arguments. People believe in God before they argue in favor of His existence, and the fortunes of theism are not inseparably bound up with any of the arguments framed in its support. No one, however, who is interested in the rational basis of theology can be indifferent to the fate of an argument which, whatever the philosophical objections to be brought against it, has in all ages of the world made a powerful appeal to human reason.

In the process of world readjustment incident to the war no department of man's life is likely to remain unaffected. Probably the more deeply we go into human nature, the more profound will be the reactions. On the surface the earth will not be the same. The scars which the Thirty Years' War left upon Europe have not yet been wholly effaced. Although the World War did not last as long, its far greater intensity and destructive force insure a vaster modification of outward nature. We already begin to see how powerfully government, society, and industry are to be affected. The whole order of life is being subjected to new pressures and set in new directions. The programme of education will have to be rearranged to meet the demands of a young manhood which has been tested ideally and practically as no other has ever been tested. Is it then likely that religion, that last resort of the human spirit, can hope to escape the challenge of the hour? To indicate certain tendencies which are already apparent and to point out the probable changes which they foreshadow—one can hardly hope to do more at this time—is the purpose of this article. It will have to do not merely with the attitude of the popular mind toward religion in general, but more particularly with the demand which it is likely to make upon the Church as the depositary and working instrument of religion.