That Christianity towers so far above the attainments of its average disciples, nay, above the attainments of its saintliest, is itself a kind of evidence of its divine origin. 'When the King of the Tartars, who was become Christian,' says Montaigne, 'designed to come to Lyons to kiss the Pope's feet, and there to be an eyewitness of the sanctity he hoped to find in our manners, immediately our good S. Louis sought to divert him from his purpose: for fear lest our inordinate way of living should, on the contrary, put him out of conceit with so holy a belief. And yet it happened quite otherwise to this other, who going to Rome to the same end, and there seeing the dissolution of the Prelates and people of that time, settled himself so much the more firmly in our religion, considering how great the force and dignity of it must necessarily be that could maintain its dignity and splendour amongst so much corruption and in so vicious hands.' God's truth abides whether men receive it or deny it. Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, though every so-called Christian should become apostate. The woes of the world are to be cured by more Christianity, not by less; and on us, in whose hands have been placed its holy oracles, rests the responsibility of proving its inestimable advantage ourselves and of conferring it on all mankind.
Wherever Christianity has really flourished, untold blessings have been the result.[[19]] With all the sad deficiencies and sadder perversions by which its course has been chequered, no influence for good can be compared with it in elevating character, in diffusing peace and goodwill, in fitting men to labour and to endure. The diffusion of the spirit of Christianity is a synonym for the diffusion of all that tends to the true well-being of the world. Only as genuine Christianity, the Christianity of Christ, prevails, will mankind be morally and spiritually lifted into a higher sphere. Put together the wisest and most ennobling suggestions of those who regard Christianity as obsolete and you find that it is virtually Christianity which is delineated. It is in the prevalence of principles and practices which, however they may be designated, are in reality Christian, that the salvation of society and of individuals will be found. In the absence of such principles and practices will be found the secret of ruin, disorder, dissolution, and decay.
It is false Christianity against which the tornado of abuse is really directed. Where genuine Christianity appears, and is recognised as genuine, it commands respect. Even the most virulent of recent assailants, who seriously considers that, until we get rid of the 'incubus of the modern Christian religion, our civilisation will so surely decay that we shall become an entirely decadent race,' and who complacently announces that 'it will not be difficult to create a faith and a religion which will serve the needs of humanity where Christianity has so signally failed,' even he is graciously pleased to allow, 'I have no quarrel with Christianity as a code of morals. The Sermon on the Mount, no matter who preached it, is quite sufficient, if its teaching was only practised instead of preached, to make this world an eminently desirable place in which to live. My quarrel is concerned with the professional promoters and organisers of religion who have made the very name of Christianity to stink in the nostrils of honest men.' In other words, it is not to Christianity, but to Christians by whom it is misrepresented, that he is opposed, and he cannot refrain from granting, though surely with transparent inconsistency, that it is by the noble lives of Christians that Christianity has been so long preserved. 'It won, with its beauty and sentiment, the allegiance of many who were true and manly. And it is such as these who have raised the Gospel from the slough of infamy. It is such as these who, in the darkest ages, have perpetuated by the goodness of their lives the faith that is left to-day. It is the virtues of Christians, not the virtue of Christianity, that keeps the faith alive.'[[20]] The very opposite is nearer the truth. The virtues of Christians are simply the outcome of the virtue of Christianity: it is the vices of Christians which compose the deepest 'slough of infamy' into which the Gospel has ever been plunged.
But from all these charges and counter-charges, it would seem to be clear that real Christianity compels respect even where it is viewed with aversion, that its progress is hindered by nothing so much as by the unworthiness of its adherents, that it gains assent by nothing so much as by the manifestation of Christian lives.
Will any one venture to deny that the world would be vastly improved were every one in it to be a genuine Christian, animated by Christian motives, doing Christian deeds? The revolution would be immense, indescribable: it would be the end of all evil: it would be the establishment of all good. No man's hand would be against another, all would strive together for the welfare of the whole, there would be no contention save how to excel in love and in good works. The human imagination cannot depict anything more glorious, more ennobling, than the will of God done on earth as it is done in heaven, and this is what would be if the thoughts of every heart were brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. The most splendid dreams of the most exalted visionaries would be more than fulfilled: everything true and lovely and of good report would be ratified and confirmed: everything false and vile would be changed and purified, and nothing to hurt or destroy or defile would remain. The fulfilment of that ideal is simply the universal prevalence of Christianity, the universal triumph of Christ.
The systems and tendencies at which we are about to glance owe their vitality to the Faith which they attempt to supersede. They are, in so far as they are good, either tending towards Christianity or borrowing from it. The insufficiency of mere material well-being, the irresistible association of Religion with Morality, the worship of the Universe, the worship of Humanity, all are signs of the ineradicable instinct of the Unseen and Eternal, of the unquenchable thirst for the Living God; and belief in the Living God finds its noblest illustration and confirmation in Him Who said, 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,' in Him to whom the searching scrutiny of critical inquirers, as well as the fervid devotion of believers, bears so marvellous a witness. We hope to show not only that the abolition of Christianity might 'be attended with sundry inconveniences,' or that the assumption of there being 'nothing in' Christianity is 'not so clear a case,' but we hope to show that if, amid present perplexity and estrangement, many feel themselves obliged to go back and walk no more with Christ, we, for our part, as we hear His voice of tender reproach, 'Will ye also go away?' can only, with heartfelt conviction, give the answer, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.'
[[1]] Tennyson, In the Children's Hospital.
[[2]] The Martyrdom of Man.
[[3]] The Churches and Modern Thought.
[[4]] Parsons and Pagans.