The Century Chest Collection

A Vision and Prophecy of Religion and Religious Conditions One Hundred Years Hence, 1913

(Transcribed from the original)

The Bishop's House
427 West 9th St
Oklahoma City Okla.

A Vision of the Future, 100 years hence,
in Religion

In such vision I see a clearer knowledge in all men's souls of the truth that God is in all Creation, working by law and by orderly process, not by sudden and immediate acts and processes, not by slow and age-long movements.

I see a time in which men will be surer, all of them, than even in the 20th Century, that God is in all things working always, and always by and according to law. Law, which is the expression of His will, and always under His supreme control.

And yet I see a vision of a clearer knowledge also of the personality of God, that He is our Father, that He is, in the person of the Incarnate Son, our brother while yet our God, that He is our Friend and fellow-worker, in the things of the spirit and mind, in the Person of the Holy Ghost. I see a time when all doubt of His revealed truth, as being Three Persons in One Divine Nature, has passed, both because men have forgotten all its difficulties, and with the heart, accepted its comfortable truth.

Again I see a time in which little things which have divided the Church of God into sects and parties, will no longer do so, because men have learned, not wholly to agree, but only to measure truth in right proportion and have ceased to contend about little things as though they were great and vital.

And so, I see a little when there will be one Church, no longer rival sects nor warring parties, because men see that little things are little and should not keep men from cordial, loving fellow-ship and intimate co-operation in good works for the world that still in 2013, will have its sinners as well as its saints.

And to that end, I see a time when there will be a practical and working unity of all Christian men in one Catholic Body of Christ, His Holy Church, and I foresee that, though names and forms of office and duties and functions may be greatly changed, there will yet be an orderly and established ministry, and only one, not many, or diverse, according to some one agreed form and order, some harmoniously arranged, and named officers with well-defined duties of teacher, pastor, and priest.  I predict this because God makes it plain to me that this is His will and Christ's purpose and plan

And seeing this vision I see that there will be a saner more active and vital connection between all parts of the Christian Church, in all parts of the world, and that there will be no part where the religion of Jesus Christ is not the prevailing faith, the religion of the most and the best. All will not know Him as fully yet, as they should, but all will "know Him, from the least unto the greatest."

Further I see a vision of that time when men, always by and through the love of God the Father, shall have learned far better than now, to love every brother man, and do it in deed and act and social law and rule of life, when a Christian man will be ashamed to be well fed and well housed when his neighbors, here or ten thousand miles away are hungry and naked and wretched in body or soul. I see a time when Christians will have learned the way to help as well as got the will to help, the poor and needy in body and soul, and so will have prevented poverty and put an end to needless distress.

I cannot foresee nor foretell that all will have just the same things, and enjoy them in the same way. There will still be differences of endowment in taste, capacity, desires, and the things to gratify them.  But none calling themselves Christian, will be discontented, envious, or covetous because each will be striving not chiefly to get what he himself wants, but to give his neighbor what that neighbor needs.

And this I foresee, and as I foresee it, wish and pray for it.

Francis K. Brooke
Missionary Bishop
of Oklahoma of the
Protestant Episcopal
Church