But this social impulse, these spontaneous group-formations of master and disciples, valuable though they may be, do not fully exhibit all that is meant or done by a church.

True, the Church is or should be at each moment of its career such a living spiritual society or household of faith.

It is, essentially, a community of persons, who have or should have a common sentiment--belief in, and reverence for, their God--and a common defined aim, the furtherance of the spiritual life under the special religious sanctions which they accept.

But every sect, every religious order or guild, every class-meeting, might claim this much; yet none of these can claim to be a church.
A church is far more than this.

In so far as it is truly alive, it is a real organism, as distinguished from a crowd or collection of persons with a common purpose.