The Living Church

Extract

Storms have a sacred mission from God: the twofold mission of sifting and of rooting. Firstly, they have the mission to sift: they separate the weak from the strong, and thus preserve the strong from the pernicious influence of the weak. After the storm has passed, only the strong remain. Secondly, storms have the mission to root: while shaking the powerful trunks these are forced to take deep root in the undermost layers of the fertile soil. After the storm, the strong continue, deep-rooted, unconquerable, in the depths of Life.

This double Mission is being fulfilled by the tempests which in our time have broken upon the World-Church in German as in other lands. They have wrought separation: weakly members who never fully lived of the trunk of the Church have broken off in the onslaught. The stronger members have remained, and in them we witness the glorious fact that, in the face of the most formidable attack, they tend only and desire to root deeper and deeper into the soil of the Church.