'How terrorless the triumph of the grave ...
... but for thy aid
Religion! but for thee, prolific fiend,
Who peoplest earth with demons, hell with men,
And heaven with slaves!
Thou taintest all thou look'st upon!'[[12]]
What shall we say to these accusations? Christians have been credulous and superstitious, have argued and acted as if only in the abnormal and exceptional could the Divine Presence be found, as if God were a hard Taskmaster and capricious Tyrant. They have resisted progress and inquiry, blindly refusing to see the light which was streaming upon them. They have unquestionably been guilty of miserable pride towards inferiors in wealth or in station, and guilty of miserable sycophancy towards the rich and the powerful. Christians have too frequently neglected the material well-being of the community, have suffered disgraceful outward conditions to remain without protest, have not striven to shed abroad happiness and brightness in squalid and wretched lives. Christians have been art and part in fostering such conditions as wrung from compassionate and indignant hearts the Song of the Shirt and the Cry of the Children. Christians have imagined that correctness of belief would make up for falseness of heart, and loudness of profession for depravity of practice. Christians have supposed that in religion all that has to be striven for is the salvation of one's own soul, have even represented the joy of the redeemed as heightened by a contemplation of the torments of the lost. Christians must bear the responsibility of much of the abounding vice which they have not earnestly tried to combat where it already exists, and which, in various forms, they have introduced into regions where it was unknown before. Lawlessness and degradation in the slums, fraud and dishonesty in trade, gross revelations in the fashionable world; bigotry, slander, scandals in the ecclesiastical world; plots, wars, treacheries, assassinations, in the political world: these things ought not so to be. The fiercest denunciations, the most withering satires, which unbelievers have employed, do not exceed in intensity of condemnation the judgment which Christian preachers and Christian writers have pronounced.[[13]]
In all ages of the Church the most powerful weapon against Christianity has been the example of Christians. The Faith which they nominally hold has been judged by the lives which they actually lead.[[14]] 'Christianity,' said a bishop of the eighteenth century, 'would perhaps be the last religion a wise man would choose, if he were guided by the lives of those who profess it.'[[15]] But is this to admit that the hope of the world lies in renouncing Christianity? that in confining ourselves to the seen and the temporal, we shall best elevate mankind? that the prospect of annihilation and the absence of wisdom, love, and Providence in the order of the universe constitute the most glorious gospel which can be proclaimed? Nothing of the kind. It is only proved that many Christians are not acting according to their belief, that their practice does not square with their profession. The belief and the profession are not proved to be wrong and bad. It would be unreasonable to argue that, because a man who has been vehemently sounding the praises of truthfulness is convicted of deliberate lying, therefore truthfulness is shown to be worthless. It is equally unreasonable to identify Christianity with everything to which it is most definitely opposed, to represent it as the enemy of everything which it was intended to maintain, and then to conclude that Christianity is discredited.[[16]] As we should argue from the detection of a liar, not that lying is right, but that he should return to the ways of truth, so we should argue from the lives of Christians who live in flagrant contradiction to the precepts of our Lord and His Apostles, not that the precepts should be rejected, but that they should be kept; not that Christianity should be abolished, but that it should be obeyed.
Christians have created prejudice, hatred, against Christianity, but it is not Christianity which they have been exhibiting. We repudiate the hideous travesty which they have made, the hideous travesty which is credulously or maliciously accepted by assailants as a correct representation. Christianity is not a religion of darkness and superstition: it calls to its disciples 'Be children of light: prove all things: hold fast that which is good.' Christianity does not sycophantishly court the rich and despise the poor: it tells the stories of the Rich Man and Lazarus, and of the Rich Fool, and it declares 'Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.' Christianity does not teach that the life which a man leads is of less consequence than the belief which he professes: it demands, 'Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?' Christianity is not selfish, is not a system which inculcates the saving of one's own soul as the first and last of duties: 'He that loveth his life shall lose it. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples if ye have love one to another.' It is surely reasonable to demand that Christianity shall be judged, not by its misrepresentations, but by what it is in itself, not as it has been perverted by bitter enemies, or by false disciples, but as it is proclaimed and manifested in its Author and Finisher.
IV
In the face of such tremendous indictments, what is the duty incumbent on us who profess and call ourselves Christians? Certainly not that we should abjure the name, but that we should remember what the name signifies. We ought to consider our ways, to give ourselves to self-examination. There must be something amiss when such hideous portraits can be painted with any expectation of their being taken as correct likenesses. It is right that we should repel with indignation the ludicrous and intolerable caricatures which are presented as our belief, the unwarrantable consequences which are deduced from it. It is right that we should remove misapprehensions and refute calumnies; but, above all it is necessary that we should take heed to our own conduct and our own character. The scandals which we have so much reason to deplore owe their existence, not to Christianity, but to the absence of Christianity. And the very sneers which greet any departure from rectitude or morality on the part of a professing Christian prove that such a departure is not a manifestation, but a renunciation of Christianity, that what is expected of Christians is the highest and the best that human nature can produce.
'If,' argues Mr. Blatchford, 'if to praise Christ in words and deny Him in deeds be Christianity, then London is a Christian city and England is a Christian nation. For it is very evident that our common English ideals are anti-Christian, and that our commercial, foreign, and social affairs are run on anti-Christian lines.'[[17]] As Mr. Blatchford's life is spent in deploring the baseness of 'our common English ideals,' and in exposing the iniquity of the methods in which 'our commercial, foreign, and social affairs' are conducted, the logical inference would seem to be that, as anti-Christian ideals and anti-Christian lines have so signally failed, it might be well to give Christian ideals and Christian lines a trial. 'In a really humane and civilised nation,' Mr. Blatchford maintains, 'there should be, and there need be, no such thing as Poverty, Ignorance, Crime, Idleness, War, Slavery, Hate, Envy, Pride, Greed, Gluttony, Vice. But,' he continues his curious argument, 'this is not a humane and civilised nation, and never will be while it accepts Christianity as its religion. These,' so he adds as an irresistible conclusion, 'these are my reasons for opposing Christianity.'[[18]] Very good reasons, if Christianity taught such a creed and encouraged such a morality. But that any human being should give such a description of the purpose of Christian Faith indicates either that the describer is swayed by blindest prejudice or else that no genuine Christian has ever crossed his path.
'What if some do not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God of none effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar.' Truth continues to be truth, though people who talk much about it may be false. Goodness continues to be goodness, though people who sing its praises may be thoroughly depraved. Generosity does not cease to be generosity, though its beauty should be extolled by a miser. Courage does not cease to be courage, though its heroism should be extolled by a coward. Temperance is temperance, though we should be assured of the fact by the thick speech of a drunkard. The virtue is admirable, even when those who acknowledge how admirable it is do not practise it.