using for this purpose both heart and head. It would strive in regard to
the special province chosen and solution reached to make its weight
felt, either locally or nationally, in a way the individual could never
hope to do; and might reasonably hope that its conclusions and its
actions would exceed in balance and sanity those which any one of the
members could have achieved alone.

I think that these groups would develop their own discipline, not borrow
its details from the past: for they would soon find that some drill was
necessary to them, and that luxury, idleness, self-indulgence and
indifference to the common-good were in conflict with the inner spirit
of the herd. They would inevitably come to practise that sane
asceticism, not incompatible with gaiety of heart, which consists in
concentration on the real, and quiet avoidance of the attractive sham.
Plainness and simplicity do help the spiritual life, and these are more
easy and wholesome when practised in common than when they are displayed
by individuals in defiance of the social order that surrounds them. The
differences of temperament and of spiritual level in the group members
would prevent monotony; and insure that variety of reaction to the life
of the Spirit which we so much wish to preserve. Those whose chief gift
was for action would thus be directly supported by those natural
contemplatives who might, if they remained in solitude, find it
difficult to make their special gift serve their fellows as it must.
Group-consciousness would cause the spreading and equalization of that
spiritual sensitiveness which is, as a matter of fact, very unequally
distributed amongst men. And in the backing up of the predominantly
active workers by the organized prayerful will of the group, all the
real values of intercession would be obtained: for this has really
nothing to do with trying to persuade God to do specific acts, it is a
particular way of exerting love, and thus of reaching and using