The question is sometimes asked, What has been the secret of the success of Christianity? Its basis is not a system but a life. Jesus, the Righteous One, drew to Himself the righteous. They that loved the light came to the light and found the universe instinct with life. Like leaven, the disciples leavened the mass. Christianity, in distinction from other systems, gives no scheme of belief and promises no paradise of plenty—it says instead, ‘The kingdom is within you.’ ‘When you do right you have all that God can give.’ ‘The joy of Christ’s is the highest joy, and His is the joy of the righteous.’ Christianity spreads, if it spreads at all, by pointing to a life.
To you, then, desiring to save the city, I take up the lesson as old as Abraham and illumined in Christ. I say, ‘Be righteous.’
Follow the light and do the right,
For man can half control his doom,
Till you find the deathless angel
Seated in the vacant tomb.
Now, as once more I look at you, I am conscious of you not only as fellow-workers seeking a common end, but as our friends. I remember how one has sorrow, another joy, and another pain; I know the anxiety which besets those whose dear ones are in danger, and the failing of heart which comes with age. I go farther, I remind you that I know some of your shortcomings, the impatience and the indolence, the will worship and the weakness, the too great speech and the too great silence. I think I know the difficulties of some as I am sure I know the goodwill of all of you. Remembering, then, that some are sad and some are tried, I say again, ‘Let everyone do that which he knows to be right.’ This implies self-examination, the deliberate questioning, ‘What do I think?’ ‘What am I doing?’ This means that everyone must settle what is the law he ought to obey, and then see how, in word, and thought, and deed, he keeps that law. Before the bar of conscience all must plead guilty, and by its judgment some will have to give up pleasures and some take up burdens.
‘Thy kingdom come,’ we pray. A sudden answer to that prayer would, it has been said, be like an earthquake’s shock.
‘Thy kingdom come.’ Let it come. At once rich men would be seen hurrying from their luxurious homes to restore profits wrongly and hardly taken, and poor men would busy themselves to put good work in the place of bad work. The conventional lie on the lady’s lip would become a bracing truth, and the political orator would stop his abuse to do justice to opponents. The idler would become busy, the frivolous serious, and the Church bountiful. For the pretence of work, the business about trifles, the everlasting money changing, the service of fashion, the gathering and squandering, the ‘aimless round in an eddy of purposeless dust’—for these there would be work which would leave men wiser and the world cleaner. Instead of scandal there would be interchange of thought, and instead of ‘bold print posters,’ calm statement of fact. The drunkards would give up drink, the indolent their ease, and no one again ‘would beat a horse or curse a woman.’ Men would become honest and quiet, they would give up envying and strife. Time spent on foolish books and in foolish talk would be devoted to study, and all obeying the call of duty would serve the common good. Such a change in character would bring about a change in things, and could, indeed, turn the world upside down. If the rich were as generous and just as Christ, if the poor were as honest and brave as Christ, there would not be much left which Socialism could add to the world’s comfort. Personal righteousness must lead to peace and plenty, and without personal righteousness peace and plenty are impossible. It is, then, for us, with our high hopes, with our common longing for the time when none shall hurt or destroy, when none shall be sad or sorrowing—it is for us to be righteous. We all know a right we do not do; whatever we do, whatever we give, whatever we are, there is more we ought to do, more we ought to give, and more we ought to be.