Perhaps  this  idea  might  be  expressed  in  the  following
way. Imagine  a  Martian,  or  some  completely  impartial
visitant  from  another  world,  studying  the  present  state
of  Christianity,  in  order  to  arrive  at  a  comprehension  of
its  essential  nature  and  meaning. Undoubtedly  at  first
sight  the  most  massive  and  imposing  fact  which  would


158     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition

force  itself  upon  his  attention  would  be  the  existence  of
a  great  central  block  numbering  some  four  hundred  mil-
lions of  people  (that  is,  nearly  four-fifths  of  the  total
periphery  of  Christendom),  which,  with  whatever  cleav-
ages of  external  unity  and  diversities  of  rite  and  custom,
holds  and  believes  in  what  is  substantially  the  same  con-
ception of  the  Christian  religion. Throughout  the  whole
length  and  breadth  of  this  block  there  runs  a  single  three-
fold grain  or  structure — doctrinal,  institutional,  and  sacra-
mental. The  Nicene  Creed,  the  great  doctrines  of  the
Trinity,  the  Incarnation,  and  the  Atonement,  the  three-
fold ministry,  the  sacraments,  the '  Communion  of  Saints ' :
these  things  are  the  same  in  Moscow  as  they  are  in  Paris,
the  same  in  Siberia  as  they  are  in  Galway. He  would
notice,  on  the  other  hand,  when  looking  at  what  I  may,
without  disrespect,  call  the  '  fringe  '  which  surrounds  this
great  central  block,  that  the  various  comminuted  frag-
ments, of  which  the  fringe  is  made  up,  have  all,  at  one
time  or  another,  been  broken  off  from  the  main  block  ;
and  that  they  do  not  seem  to  have  any  one  clearly  essen-
tial principle  binding  them  together,  other  than  that  of
their  separation  from  it. He  would  notice,  further,  that
so  far  as  they  have  any  positive  structure  at  all,  it  is
identical  with  that  of  the  main  block,  only  cut  down  and
mutilated  in  varying  degrees  of  completeness. Some
which  lie  close  to  the  main  block  have  the  three-fold
grain  very  clearly  marked  :  others  have  it  less  distinctly
visible,  and  in  others  it  has  been  almost  entirely  obliter-
ated. Those  which  lie  farthest  away,  on  the  extreme
edge  of  the  fringe  (the  schools  of  thought  associated  with
the  names  of  Troeltsch  and  Jatho),  seem  to  shade  off  into
and  to  be  practically  indistinguishable  from  the  surround-
ing abyss  of  pure  agnosticism. 