There is, then, in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ a manifestation of Christ's Real Presence, a spiritual Presence indeed, which is discerned by the spiritual vision of Christian faith, but a Presence of which the reality is independent of individual faithlessness, though not independent of the faith of the Christian Church as a whole.

This doctrine of the Real Presence (as it is called) of course does not imply that Christ is absent from His Church at other times or in other connexions. We believe that all times and places are present to the mind of Christ, and that therefore at all times and in all places we are in His presence. We believe, further, that Christ through the Spirit is embodied, however inadequately, in His Church, and that He dwells spiritually in the hearts of Christian men. There is nothing, however, in these truths to exclude the further truth that His presence is specially manifested through the Bread which embodies Him and the Wine which is His Blood. Bread and wine, solemnly set apart for the purpose of communion and hallowed by the Spirit in response to the prayer of the Church, possess henceforward a significance which did not belong to them before. They are now vehicles or sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ.

The purpose of the manifestation of Christ's Presence in Holy Communion is that we should receive Him, and a participation in the service which stops short of actual communion is so far incomplete. But it is gratuitous to assume that the reality of the sacramental Presence is limited to the moment of actual or individual reception, and it is untrue to say that attendance at the service, apart from individual reception, is unmeaning. The habitual attendance of persons who are not regular communicants—unless it be in the case of those who for any reason are as yet unconfirmed—falls short of full discipleship and is intrinsically undesirable. But this objection does not apply to attendance at the service on the part of communicant Churchmen who yet on a particular occasion do not communicate: and to attend throughout the service without personally communicating is a procedure infinitely preferable to the irreverent modern custom, still prevalent in too many parishes, of leaving the Church in the course of a celebration of the Communion, and before the consecration has taken place. It is unfair to those who are preparing to receive Communion that their devotions should be disturbed by the noisy egress of a large body of worshippers. It is also quite unintelligible that any Churchman who considers seriously the meaning of the Eucharist should be content to depart before the liturgical drama has reached its climax.

As regards actual reception of Holy Communion, it is a partaking of Christ, who gives Himself therein to His disciples to be in them a spiritual principle of life and power. S. Paul discovers in the Eucharist a spiritual food and drink which is the reality to which the Manna and the Water from the Rock of Hebrew story correspond as types and shadows, and he declares that the Bread which we break is a sharing of the Body of Christ, and that the Cup of Blessing which we bless is a sharing of His Blood. At the same time the Communion is not to be interpreted in any gross or carnal manner, or in such a way as to give colour to the ancient taunt of Celsus, the heathen critic, that Christians were self-confessed cannibals. The Fourth Gospel, which, in a context that is in a general sense eucharistic, ascribes to our Lord strong phrases about the necessity of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, proceeds in the same context to explain that "it is the Spirit that giveth life," that "the flesh," in itself, "profiteth nothing." "The sayings which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life." In other words, we are to understand that when our Lord uses the terms "flesh" and "blood" He means the Spirit of which His life in the flesh was the expression, and the Life of which His outpoured Blood was the principle: that the inward reality of the Eucharist is to be discovered, not in any quasi-material fleshly embodiment which the Bread conceals, or in any quasi-literal Blood, but rather in the Spirit and the Life of Christ Himself. The Bread is His Body in the sense that it is an embodiment of His Spirit: the Wine is His Blood in the sense that it mediates His Life. The sacrament is to be understood as a "point of personal contact with Jesus Christ." Rightly to receive Communion is to hold spiritual converse with the risen Lord and to find in Him the Bread of Life, the food and sustenance of the soul. So it is that the Eucharist, at once supremely natural and wholly supernatural, is the meeting-place of earth and heaven. From one point of view our worship is in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. It is "with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven," that we laud and magnify GOD'S Holy Name. We join in an eternal act of worship, which is that of the whole Church, the departed with the living, whose adoration ascends continually before the throne of GOD.

If we like to express it so, we are pleading the eternal sacrifice: we are uniting ourselves, in desire and in intention, with Christ's eternal self-devotion and oblation of Himself. Calvary itself was in a sense but the enacted symbol, the supreme outward expression, of our Lord's sacrifice, of which the inward essence is eternal. It is the self-offering of a Will that was wholly dedicated to GOD on others' behalf, obedient even unto death, and through death triumphant: the Will of One "who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to GOD," and who now, being ascended into the heavens, for ever liveth to make intercession for us. Looking at the Eucharist from this point of view we are bold to approach the Throne of GOD and to offer Christ on our behalf—"Behold the Lamb of GOD that taketh away the sin of the world": but we proceed also to offer ourselves in Christ—"Here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and lively sacrifice unto Thee."

And so doing we are made one with Christ and one in Him with each other. The Eucharist has a social aspect which is too little regarded. It is the sacrament of Holy Fellowship. "We that are many are one Bread, one Body," wrote S. Paul, "for we all partake of the one Bread." The Holy Communion is the sacrament of the unity of all Christians in Christ. The scandal of a divided Christendom shows itself perhaps most of all in the fact that it prevents inter- communion. For that very reason it appears to many persons unreal, and therefore wrong, to practise isolated acts of inter-communion while ecclesiastical differences remain unresolved: it is to conceal the fact of actual disunion beneath the cloak of immediate sentiment. Yet there is a true sense in which, through the Spirit, we are, in the act of communion, made one with the fellowship of all faithful people whether in the sphere of this earthly life or in the world that is beyond death and tears: with all those, of whatever race or rank or age or country, who amid whatever diversity of language and liturgy and denominational loyalty, have named the name of Christ and received the life of Christ in obedience to His command as they understood it. There is no bond comparable to this bond, and no equality like the equality of those who, high and low, rich and poor, one with another, kneel side by side as brothers and sisters at the common Table of the Lord.

And lastly there is a further point. The Body of Christ is a broken Body and the Blood is Blood that is shed. "This is My Body which is for you"—for you, and never for Myself. The Bread is the Bread of Sacrifice and the Cup is the Stirrup-cup of Service: and part, surely, and a great part, of the meaning of the words, "Do this in remembrance of Me," is "Break your bodies in union with My Body broken: give your lives in sacrifice for others, as I have given Mine." The Eucharist, rightly regarded, is the mainspring and motive-power of service, the principle of a life that is crucified. And all those who in their day and generation have spent their lives unselfishly and used themselves up in promoting causes not their own are partakers in that Holy Fellowship.

At this present time of war and tumult, when all the powers of Hell are abroad and leagued together for the onset, we think of that which alone can be the redemption of war, even the self-devotion of those who, hating the whole devilish business and going into it only because they saw no alternative to Duty's clear and imperative call, have been counted worthy to show forth the love than which no man hath greater, even to lay down their lives for their friends. There is no one so unfortunate as not to have known some such men. And at the Communion Service "in the act of conscious incorporation into the fellowship of the love of Jesus," it may be given to us in some measure to understand these things, and to know that we are become partakers in the power of a world-wide crucifixion, a fellowship of broken bodies and lives poured out in Christ: and to know also—with a knowledge that is not of this world—that somehow, in it and through it, the Spirit of GOD in Christ will bring redemption.

So wonderful, so many-sided, and so full of meaning is this Sacrament: so great is the measure of their loss who, professing and calling themselves Christians, are content to ignore the last injunction of the Christ to His disciples on the night before He died that we might live.



CHAPTER X

THE LAST THINGS

"It is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the judgment."

"He shall come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose Kingdom shall have no end."

"I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting."

Jesus Christ spoke in symbolical language of His coming in the clouds of heaven as Son of Man with power and great glory, and declared that the Divine verdict upon the lives and deeds of men should be determined by their relationship to Him and to His ideals. Both in the days of the Apostles, and for the most part among succeeding generations of Christian people down to the present time, it would seem that a more literal signification was attached to His words than they will really bear. The truth of the Divine Judgment upon men's lives nevertheless stands. "GOD is a great Judge, strong and patient: and GOD is provoked every day." We must, however, be careful, in thinking of the reality of Divine Judgment, to interpret the justice of GOD in the light of the Christian revelation of His Love. The attitude of GOD towards sinners is never anything but love, though a love that is holy and righteous, and never merely sentimental. GOD as Christ reveals Him can never impose or inflict a merely external penalty upon a sinner, other than the supreme penalty of being simply what he is, viz. a soul who by his own deliberate actions has separated himself from goodness and from GOD. It is important in thinking of the Judgment to remember that the essence of judgment is neither the sentence nor the penalty: it is simply the verdict, whereby moral and spiritual realities are revealed, shams and disguises are stripped off, and evil is separated from good. [Footnote: The associations of an English law-court, in which the verdict is the work of the jury, are here misleading.] If our Lord, speaking in parables, declared, of such as had neglected to do good, that "these shall go away into eternal punishment," a considerable body of orthodox opinion in the Christian Church has always held that the punishment in question consists essentially in the "penalty of loss"—the loss of goodness and of GOD, the loss of capacity for the life which is life indeed—rather than in any imagined "penalty of sense," or purposeless prolongation of pain. The imagery which our Lord employed to describe the spiritual condition known as "hell" is taken from the Valley of Hinnom, a ravine just outside the walls of Jerusalem, in which fires were continually maintained for the destruction of refuse, and maggots preyed on offal. The imagery is sufficiently terrible; but it suggests the destruction of waste products in GOD'S creation, rather than the prolonged torture of living beings. It may well be that a soul, which by persistent and deliberate rejection of every appeal of the Divine Love even to the very end—in this life or beyond—has become so wholly self-identified with evil as to be finally incapable of life in GOD, passes, of necessity, out of sentient existence altogether. We do not know. What we do know is, in the first place, that wickedness is of its very nature instinct with the eternal quality of "hell"; and, in the second place, that GOD is Love, and that GOD "desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness, and live."

Just as the term "hell" expresses the condition of a soul which by its own act and deed and deliberate choice has become wholly self- identified with evil, so the term "heaven" expresses the spiritual state of the pure in heart, to whom it is given to see GOD. So regarded, heaven is simply the ideal consummation of progressive spiritual advance, the perfect fruition of that "beatific vision" which the saints of GOD desired. It has ever been the conviction of the Christian Church that her members are already, even in this present life, made partakers in the life of heaven, just in proportion as their affections are set upon things above and not upon things in the earth. What is begun here is continued more perfectly hereafter; but it is unreasonable to assume that at the moment of death the ultimate fulness of "heaven" is immediately attained.

The Church, therefore, has believed in an intermediate state, sometimes called "Purgatory," a condition of progressive purification and spiritual growth, characterized at once by a deepening penitence for the sins and failures of the past, and by a deepening joy in GOD'S more perfect service.

Moreover, since the Christian salvation is a social salvation, those who have departed this life in GOD'S faith and fear shall not without us be made perfect. None can enter fully into the joy of the Lord until the whole of GOD'S great World-purpose is accomplished, and all are gathered in. This brings us to the consideration of the Christian belief in the Second Advent and the final Kingdom of GOD. It has already been remarked that the terms in which this belief is expressed are symbolical and should not be taken literally. Just because we ourselves, under the conditions of life here upon earth, are immersed in the stream of time, the idea of an ending of the World-process, a final passing over of time into eternity, is to us, in the strict and literal sense of the words, unthinkable. Only under the form of imagery and symbol is it in the nature of things possible for the idea of the last great Drama to be expressed, or rather, suggested: it is impossible for our minds to grasp, in any more exact or effectual manner, the Reality which the imagery is meant to symbolize. It may be that the event expressed by the dramatic picture of the Second Advent of the Christ is simply the revelation of the fact of His Eternal Presence at once as Saviour and as Judge; however this may be, the picture stands for the assurance of His final triumph, and the vindication of His Kingdom in its fulness: and as such it is the object of Christian hope—"Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done; in earth, as it is in Heaven."

If we ask what is the positive nature of the Christian hope and what the final character of the life of heaven, the answer is that we cannot fully say, that we know only in part, "we see obscurely, as in a mirror." In hymn and ecstasy and vision men have sought to find expression for the substance of things hoped for, and they have failed. "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things that GOD hath prepared for them that love Him." The Book of the Revelation essays to paint a picture of the heavenly state, and for the most part succeeds in setting before our minds a noble imagery; but in the end its language is most convincing when it tells us what heaven is not. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. And GOD shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." Negatives and contrasts—the picture of a state of things contrasted with all that in the world as we know it is amiss; we cannot positively envisage heaven. Only we believe that "there remaineth a rest for the people of GOD," where nevertheless they rest not day or night from His perfect service. "Beloved, now are we sons of GOD, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him: for we shall see Him as He is."

Here this chapter might end: but with regard to the nature of the Christian conception of the life of the world to come there is something more to be said: for the Church's creed contains the assertion of a belief in the Resurrection of the Body, or even, in the Latin form of the Apostles' Creed, and in the translation which appears in the Prayer-book Service for Baptism, in the Resurrection of the Flesh. The plain man may be tempted, brushing aside such a doctrine in its plain and literal acceptation as a manifest impossibility, either to hold aloof from a Church which retains such an affirmation in her creed, or else to conclude hastily that the words are meant only as a picturesque way of expressing a belief in the immortality of the soul. Either attitude would be a mistake. It is true that a literal resuscitation of Christian corpses on some future Day of Resurrection would be neither possible nor desirable. Nevertheless the Christian doctrine of the life to come involves more than a bare assertion of the immortality of the soul.

The body is the embodiment or vehicle of the spirit; the spirit disembodied would be a mere wraith, a phantasm of the living man. The life of the world to come is not unreal or shadowy as compared with the concrete reality of the life of earth: it is a life richer and fuller, more concrete and more glorious than the life of earth. The Church by her doctrine of the Resurrection means to affirm that the full reality of that which made the living man what he was is carried over into the life beyond. The buried corpse is not "the body that shall be." "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." As to the nature of the future embodiment of the spirit in the life beyond the grave we are ignorant. "GOD giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to each seed a body of its own." But we believe that "the deeds done in the body" here upon earth while we are yet tabernacling in the flesh necessarily affect and determine the character of the spiritual embodiment which shall be ours hereafter. For this reason we hold our bodies sacred, as being temples of the Holy Ghost. "The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body." Christianity can have nothing to do with the notion that the defilement of the body is without effect in the pollution of the soul.

[NOTE.-For a fuller treatment of the subjects of the Second Advent and the Resurrection of the Body the writer may be allowed to refer to Chapters III. and IV. in his book, Dogma, fact and Experience (Macmillan & Co., 1915).]



CHAPTER XI

CLERGY AND LAITY

The clergy are not the Church. They are a specialized class within it. They are men who believe themselves to be called by GOD to give themselves for life to the particular work of caring directly for the spiritual interests of their fellows. To this end they are set apart by ordination. They hold the commission and authorization of the Church to minister the Word and Sacraments of the Gospel in the name of Christ and of the Brotherhood. Their task is high and difficult. It is not wonderful if they fail. But solemn prayer is offered for them at their ordination: and the answer to the Church's prayers is according to the measure of the Church's faith.

The historical or Catholic system of ministry in the Church consists of a hierarchy in three orders or gradations. To the order of Bishops belongs oversight or pastorate-in-chief. It is not the business of a Bishop to be prelatical, or to lord it over GOD'S heritage, but to be the servant of the servants of GOD. A Bishop is consecrated to his office by not less than three of those who are already Bishops. He exercises all the functions of the Christian ministry, including those of confirmation and ordination and the right to take part in episcopal consecrations.

Priests and deacons are a Bishop's delegates for certain purposes. A priest may have charge of a "parish" or subdivision of a diocese, and is competent to celebrate the Eucharist, to bless, to baptize, and to absolve. He is also authorized to preach, and to give instruction in Christian doctrine. He may not confirm or ordain apart from the Bishop, though he may co-operate with the latter in ordinations to the priesthood. He is ordained to his ministry by the Bishop acting in conjunction with certain representatives of the priesthood who take part with him in the laying on of hands.

Deacons are subordinate ministers appointed to assist parish priests in the work of parochial visiting and also, within certain limits, in the conduct of Divine worship and the administration of the sacraments. They may read parts of the service, but have no authority to bless or to absolve. They may preach by express and specific license from the Bishop. They may not celebrate the Eucharist, but may assist the priest who does so by reading the Gospel and administering the chalice. They are ordained to their office by the Bishop, and in most cases, though not invariably, proceed subsequently to the priesthood. [Footnote: In the absence of a Bishop or priest, a deacon is competent to baptize. In the absence of any of the clergy Baptism may also, in cases of urgency, be administered by a layman, and in the absence of a man, by a woman.]

The principles which underlie this system of Catholic order in the Church are important. The devolution of authority to minister through the episcopate safeguards the continuity of the Church's corporate life and tradition, and secures that ministerial functions shall be exercised in the name and by the authority of the Christian Society as a whole. Moreover through the ordered succession of the Bishops the tradition of ministerial authority is carried back certainly to sub- apostolic, and perhaps also actually to apostolic, times: it represents in principle Christ's commission to His Apostles—"As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you."

At the same time it is important that the doctrine of the ministry should not be allowed to become "sacerdotalist" in a wrong sense. The Christian priesthood is not in possession of any magical or exclusive powers. The essence of priesthood is the dedication of life as a whole to the service of GOD on behalf of others: and in this sense every Christian man is meant in his ordinary daily life and business to be a priest of GOD and a servant of his brethren. What the Church to-day needs most chiefly is a body of laymen who will take seriously their vocation. A layman is not a Christian of inferior type, on whose behalf the clergy are expected to display a vicarious spirituality: he is simply an unordained member of the people of GOD. The hope of the future is that laymen should do their part, not merely by supporting the efforts of the clergy, but by exercising their own proper functions as living members of Christ. The Church—and especially the Church of England—is in vital need of reform. The recently launched "Life and Liberty" Movement is a hopeful sign of the determination of a certain number of clergy and laity that reform shall be secured. In particular it is essential that the Church should recover freedom of self-government in spiritual things, and liberty to adapt her machinery and organization to changing needs, by the readjustment of her relation towards the State. This may or may not involve disestablishment, and disestablishment in turn, if it should take place, need not necessarily involve, but in practice would probably involve, some measure of partial disendowment. The Church must be prepared for all eventualities, and must be ready, should necessity arise, to take cheerfully the spoiling of her goods. For liberty is essential at all costs.

In the movement for Life and Liberty, as in every other department of her work, the Church needs the co-operation of her laity. It is their duty both to be informed in ecclesiastical affairs, and to make their voices heard. It is part of the programme of Church reformers to give the laity, through elected representatives, a more effective voice in Church affairs. The administration of finance and the raising of funds for work both at home and abroad is more particularly their province, but there is no single department of Church affairs in which the layman ought not to have his share, though no doubt the Bishops in virtue of their office have a special responsibility in matters of doctrine. Certainly there is need of a much greater extension of lay preaching, and a freer recognition of the capacity of many laymen to lead the worship and intercessions of their brethren. The administration of the sacraments, with the partial exception of baptism, is reserved for those to whom it is committed: but this need not and does not apply to the ministries of preaching and of prayer.

Clerical autocracy, where it exists, ought resolutely and firmly to be broken down. It has to be admitted that between clergy and laity at present there is a regrettable and widespread cleavage. The clergy are widely criticized, and it is certain that they have many faults. One who belongs to their number cannot help being conscious of some at least of the failings both of himself and of his class. But the faults are not all upon one side. It may be suspected that those who criticize the clergy with the greatest freedom are not always those who pray for them most earnestly. To affirm that the laity get, upon the whole, the clergy they deserve would be too hard a saying: but it is sometimes forgotten that the clergy are recruited from the ranks of the laity, and that, when not dehumanized by an undue professionalism of outlook, they are human. Many of them would be frankly grateful for friendly co-operation and criticism on the part of the lay members of their flocks. One of the difficulties about preaching is that the clergy in many instances do not really know what is in the layman's mind. The life of the Church in England will not proceed along healthy lines until there is greater mutual candour between laymen and clergy. At present laymen will not talk freely about matters of religion in the presence of the clergy because they imagine (often quite wrongly) that the latter would be shocked. It sometimes happens conversely that the clergy hesitate to express their real minds for fear that laymen would be shocked. This attitude of mutual reserve is hopeless. No Christian, lay or clerical, has any business to be shocked at any expression of opinion whatever, orthodox or unorthodox, whether in faith or in morals. Either side may disagree with the other; but either ought to be prepared to listen to what the other has to say.



CHAPTER XII

THE BIBLE

The Bible is the "sacred Book" of Christianity, as the Koran is the sacred Book of Mohammedanism; with this difference, however, that Christianity, as the religion of the Spirit, can never be, like Mohammedanism, a "religion of the Book," any more than it can be, like ancient Judaism, a religion of the Law. The Biblical writings include two main collections of books, known as the Old Testament and the New Testament respectively, of which the latter alone is distinctively Christian. Intermediate between the two "Testaments" in point of date are the writings known as the "Apocrypha," which though inferior, for the most part, in spiritual value to the fully canonical books, and frequently omitted from printed editions of the Bible, are regarded by the Church as canonical in a secondary sense.

The various books of the Bible originally became canonical, that is, were included in the "canon" or collection of sacred writings, on the ground that they were read aloud or recited in the course of Divine worship. The Old Testament canon comprises the books customarily read aloud in the Jewish synagogue, together with certain other writings associated with them. The books of the New Testament are a similar collection of early Christian writings which were read side by side with the Old Testament in Christian worship. The selection of these particular writings for the purpose was determined in part by the Church's recognition of their spiritual value and in part by the regard which was paid by the Christian community to the religious authority of those by whom they were believed to have been written.

Speaking generally, we may say that the Old Testament is the religious literature of Judaism. It is the literary deposit of the spiritual life of a nation, the written record and monument of a progressive process of religious development. It begins at the level of folklore and primitive tribal cults, such as are portrayed or reflected, for example, in parts of the Pentateuch and in the Books of Judges and Samuel. It culminates, in the utterances of the greatest of the prophets and in many of the Psalms, at the highest levels of religious attainment which are discoverable anywhere in history prior to the coming of our Lord.

The Old Testament will always have a value for Christianity: in part because many of the religious lessons which it conveys can never be superseded even by Christianity itself: in part because the study of it provides the general knowledge of Judaism, and of Jewish institutions and modes of thought, which is necessary for the proper understanding of the religious background of the Gospels, and of much else in the New Testament as well: in part also because the two revelations—the Jewish and the Christian—hang together, interlocking with one another as anticipation and fulfilment, in a manner which is singularly impressive.

The various books of the Old Testament, nevertheless, require to be read by Christians with discrimination, and with a clear realization of their Jewish character. There is much in the Old Testament as it stands which is liable to mislead the simple and cause needless difficulty. There are, moreover, numerous passages, and not a few entire books, which except in the light of historical criticism and scholarly guidance are not really intelligible. But the study of the Old Testament as reinterpreted in our own generation by research and scholarship is a fascinating subject. It requires little in the way of technical equipment, and there is no reason in the world why it should be monopolized by specialists. To have even the most general acquaintance with the methods and results of critical study brings with it a great transformation of outlook. The Old Testament writers come to life again wonderfully when they are set in their proper historical context, and the result is a clear gain in spiritual values. The best general introduction to the whole subject is Dr. W. B. Selbie's book, The Nature and Message of the Bible (Student Christian Movement, 3s. 6d.). Canon Nairne's volume, The Faith of the Old Testament (Layman's Library, Longmans, 2s. 6d.) is an illuminating survey designed specially to bring out the religious value of the Old Testament, [Footnote: Those who may desire a more detailed and comprehensive treatment of the literary problems of the Old Testament should consult G. B. Gray, A Critical Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (Duckworth, 2s. 6d.).] and for commentaries upon individual books The Century Bible (T. C. and E. C. Jack, 3s. each volume) is to be recommended.

The books of the New Testament are the classical literature of Christianity in a much fuller and more obvious sense. Here, again, there is much that apart from the use of a good commentary will be found hardly intelligible: but the greater part of the New Testament, and especially the Gospels, can be read with profit by the ordinary man apart from any extraneous aids. It is well to remember that S. Paul's Epistles were written at an earlier date than any of the Gospels, and that they represent the occasional correspondence of a hard-worked missionary. Of the Gospels the first three have much in common, and the Gospels of S. Matthew and S. Luke are based partly upon that of S. Mark. S. Mark is said to have been the companion of S. Peter, and is probably the author of the Gospel which bears his name. It may be taken to represent his reminiscences of S. Peter's preaching. The Gospel now known as that according to S. Matthew appears to be the work of a compiler who fitted into the framework of S. Mark's story a considerable amount of additional matter, drawn chiefly from a collection of "sayings of Jesus" which an early Christian writer declares to have been made by S. Matthew in Aramaic. S. Matthew's name, it is thought, was subsequently attached to the resulting document, since it contained a large preponderance of material derived from his book on our Lord's sayings. The name of the actual compiler of the first Gospel has not survived.

S. Luke's Gospel is a compilation made upon somewhat similar lines, and is based, in large measure, upon the same two sources: but the author's researches extended also more widely, and his Gospel contains a large proportion of matter peculiar to itself, which critics commonly regard as being of high historical value. The author of the book was a Greek doctor who attended upon S. Paul, accompanying the latter in his travels, and writing the Acts of the Apostles as a second volume in continuation of his Gospel. The Acts is partly based upon a kind of diary which S. Luke kept of his experiences as S. Paul's companion and physician.

It is probable that both the first and the third of our four Gospels were in existence shortly before, or at the latest very shortly after, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70 A.D. The second Gospel, since they both drew upon it, must be even earlier.

The Gospel according to S. John is of a somewhat later date, and bears a different character. It is reflective and meditative, and is penetrated throughout by a mystical symbolism. In many ways it suggests rather a spiritual interpretation of the significance of Jesus than a literal portrait of Him. Again, it is the product of a Greek rather than of a Jewish atmosphere, though its narrative presents so many touches of extraordinary vividness, and the author shows so exact a knowledge of Jewish institutions and conditions of life in Palestine, that it is difficult not to think that the book must have been written by a Jew who knew Judaism before its downfall. It is supposed that the writing dates from the closing years of the first century, and tradition declares that the author was S. John in old age at Ephesus. This statement is, however, in dispute, and the authorship of the Gospel is uncertain. In point of fact, it does not matter who the writer was. There is no one of the interpreters of Jesus who had drunk more deeply of His Spirit than had he: nor is there any of the books of the New Testament which brings Jesus closer to us than the Gospel according to S. John, or speaks home with greater power to the heart and affections of the simplest Christian.



PART II

THE PRACTICE OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION

CHAPTER I

THE CHRISTIAN AIM

Christianity in practice means the dedication of life to the unselfish service of GOD and man, in the light of the ideals of Jesus Christ, and in the power of an inward spiritual life which is hid with Christ in GOD. The Christian, renouncing such merely worldly ideals as self- advancement, personal or family ambition, the accumulation of money, or the enjoyment, for their own sake, of the things which money can buy, is called to seek first and in all things GOD'S Kingdom and His righteousness, in the assurance that whatever may be really necessary for the advancement of this aim will in due course be added unto him.

He is not to expect to find the practice of his religion to be, in a worldly sense, profitable; and the practice of his religion is to cover the whole of life. The desperate attempt to combine the service of GOD with that of Mammon is therefore to be abandoned. If riches increase, he is not to set his heart upon them. If poverty be his lot, he is to embrace poverty as a bride. The aim and object of his life is not to be to get his own will done, but to discover what for him is the will of GOD, and to do it. He is to be the slave of GOD in Christ, a living instrument in the hands of Another, called to co-operate in a purpose not his own, though a purpose which he is to embrace, and to make his own, in a spirit of loyal sonship.

This means, among other things, that life is to be interpreted in terms of vocation. It means that for every man there is a "calling," a particular line of life which GOD intends him to follow, a specific piece of service to GOD and to his neighbour which he is called upon to render. The motto of a Christian's life is to be the motto of his Master—"My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to accomplish His work." Gifts and capacities, aptitudes for any special work, are therefore "talents," to be used in accordance with the will and purpose of the Giver. Opportunities and endowments, whatsoever they may be, are opportunities and endowments for service.

It does not necessarily follow from this that a realization of the truth of Christianity, and an awakening to the claims of religion, will lead to any outward change or radical alteration in the general conception of a man's life-work. It may or it may not do so. There are indubitably cases in which a man is called upon to abandon his previous career—to forsake prospects, however promising, or to renounce wealth and possessions, however entangling—in order to become (for example) a minister of the Church or a missionary of the Gospel, or to enter a religious order. Our Lord's command to the rich young ruler, that he should give up all that he had, in order to follow Christ along the paths of homelessness and poverty, is a call which sounds still with a literal force in the ears of a certain number of His disciples. The inner spirit, moreover, of detachment from the world and from the things of the world, the readiness to abandon wealth and worldly position if need so require, and the refusal to be ensnared by them, are in any case demanded of all. The vocation, however, of the majority of men is already determined by their circumstances, or by their training and general aptitudes. It is only the few, comparatively speaking, who are called to become monks or missionaries, or priests devoid of "prospects." The majority will best serve GOD and their neighbour by "carrying on" in their existing occupations: and in most cases they are incidentally called also, sooner or later, to matrimony.

But GOD calls no man to idleness. It is the duty of every Christian, rich as well as poor, unless he be incapacitated by bodily sickness or infirmity, to be engaged in some work of general service to the community: and a man who proposes seriously to practise the Christian religion needs to ask himself, with regard to the work or occupation in which he is engaged, or by which he earns his bread, whether he can say truly that he believes it to be the work which his Father has given him to do: whether it can be interpreted, not simply as a means of livelihood, but as a service rendered in Christ's name to society at large. If it cannot so be interpreted, then plainly it is no work which a Christian should be doing. There are ways of making a living which, are definitely unchristian. The work of a shoe-black or of a tradesman or of an actor may be as true a piece of Christian service as that of a doctor or a bishop. The work of a burglar or of a bookmaker could not be so regarded.

Christianity—it cannot be too strongly insisted—means the Christianization of life as a whole. It is in the daily round and the common task that Christ is most chiefly to be served. "Whatsoever ye do in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to GOD and the Father by Him." Religion is a wider thing than piety, and it is a false pietism which would regard it as consisting mainly of pious practices. The cultivation of the inner spiritual life by means of the practices of Christian devotion is indeed essential in its place and its degree. The life of the spirit languishes if it is not fed. But except these things issue in the practical service of Christ in daily life they are worse than futile. They degenerate either into formalism and hypocrisy, or into spiritual self- indulgence. "Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." "By their fruits ye shall know them." And the "fruits" of Christian living are to be discovered, not in the hours spent in devotion, but in the manifestation amid the activities of the market-place of that temper of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and that spirit of unselfish service, which should be their normal product.

What is needed is a wider conception of Churchmanship and a truer doctrine of vocation. All honest work in which a Christian can lawfully engage should be regarded as an expression of his Churchmanship—as truly work done for the Church of GOD in obedience to a vocation from on high as is the work of a priest or a teacher of religion. It is at least partly because the majority of laymen do not so interpret their work in life that in so many cases they are discovered to be in effect living for the sake of their leisure and regarding their daily work as uninteresting drudgery, with the result that life as a whole comes to be for them dreary and profitless and stale. A Christian man's life-work ought not to have the character of drudgery, but of sheer delight in GOD'S service.

But is such an ideal really practicable? It is literally practicable to a greater extent than most men think. It ought to be practicable universally. At the same time there is no disguising the fact that large numbers of men to-day find themselves in circumstances to which such a doctrine cannot without palpable unreality be applied. The structure of existing society under modern industrial conditions forces multitudes, by an evil economic pressure, into mechanical, uncongenial, and soul-destroying occupations: and the conditions of some men's labour in the world as it is are such that it would be sheer blasphemy to regard them as a product of the will of GOD. The problem of the Christianization of the social order is one of the greatest of the tasks confronting the Christian Church. Its solution has hardly yet begun to be attempted. In the meantime the mass of Christian people, in virtue of their acquiescence, are accomplices in the denial to the disinherited classes of the conditions and opportunities which make life worth living for themselves. So long as it continues to be possible for a man who genuinely desires to learn and labour truly to get his own living to starve in the midst of plenty: so long as multitudes are constrained to work under conditions which rob their labour of all interest, of all idealism, and of all hope: so long as sweating, and destitution, and such conditions of life as obtain in the more densely crowded areas of our great towns continue to exist: so long will it be the duty of every Christian to be a social reformer, and to have a conscience permanently troubled with regard to wealth and social advantage. [Footnote: Mr. George Lansbury's Your Part in Poverty (George Alien and Unwin, Ltd., Is.) is a book worth reading in this particular connexion.]

Meanwhile the Christian ideal of life stands. It is the ideal of consecration to service. It means discipleship in Christ's school of unselfishness, both individual and corporate: for there is a selfishness of the family, of the class, or of the nation, which bears as bitter fruit in the world as does the selfishness of the individual. Christianity, in a word, means the carrying out into daily practice of the ideal of the Imitatio Christi, the imitation of Jesus Christ, in the spirit if not in the letter. It means that as He was, so are we to be in the world. It means that all things, whatsoever we do, are to be done in His Spirit and to His glory: that our every thought is to be led captive under the obedience of Christ. It means that we are to love GOD because GOD first loved us, and to love men because they are our brothers in the family of GOD: because love is of GOD, and every one that loveth is born of GOD and knoweth GOD. It means that we are to consecrate all comradeship and loyalty and friendship, all sorrow and all joy, by looking upon them as friendship and loyalty and comradeship in Christ, as sorrow and joy in Him. It means that we are to live glad, strong, free, clean lives as sons of GOD in our Father's House.

It means also struggle and hardship. It means truceless war against the spirit of selfishness, against everything that tends to drag us down, against the law of sin in our own members. It means a truceless war against low ideals and tolerated evils in the world about us. It means soldiership in the eternal crusade of Christ against whatsoever things are false and dishonest and unjust and foul and ugly and of evil report.

It is an ideal which, considered in isolation from the Christian Gospel of redemption and the power of the Holy Spirit, could only terrify and daunt a man who had a spark of honesty in his composition: and for this reason the mass of men refuses to take it seriously. It is an ideal which, in the case of all who do take it seriously, convinces them of sin.

Nevertheless to lower the ideal, to abate one jot of its severity, to compromise, on the score of human weakness, though it were but in a single particular, the flawless perfection of its standard, were to prove false to all that is highest within us, and traitor to the cause of Christ.

"Never, O Christ—so stay me from relenting—Shall there be truce betwixt my flesh and soul."



CHAPTER II

THE WAY OF THE WORLD

The three traditional enemies of the Christian life are symbolized under the headings of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, and the classification has a certain convenience. The "World" stands in this connexion for human society in so far as it is organized apart from Christ. It is obvious that "the way of the world," as represented by the general outlook of conventional society, is in many respects in manifest conflict with the principles of the Gospel. The existing social order is the product of a compromise between inherited influences and standards which are in a certain sense broadly Christian, and the natural man's instinctive selfishness in matters both individual and social. The conflict against the spirit of worldliness which should be one of the marks of a genuine Christian life is beset by peculiar difficulties, precisely because in a society which is in some respects partially Christian the issues are confused. Public opinion indubitably tolerates many things which should not be tolerated, and condones others which should not be condoned. But public opinion approves much that is good, and does lip-service to a variety of Christian ideals, even while reserving the reality of its devotion for the worship of success and material comfort.

Perhaps it may be said that the most fundamental characteristic of essentially "worldly" opinion is absence of idealism. Worldliness is the principle of contentment with things as they are. Against worldliness, so defined, the Christian is committed to a conflict all along the line, since even in those regions of life and conduct in which the standards recognized by the world are right and good so far as they go, "the good is the enemy of the best." To rest content at any point with what has already been attained is fatal to all spiritual advance. It is, in effect, the death of the soul.

Mr. William Temple has remarked that in the conflict of Christians against the Devil and the Flesh the public opinion of the Church, as visibly organized, is on their side, but that in their conflict with the World it is decidedly against them. That is an over-statement, but it conveys a truth. Undoubtedly the Church has made compromises with the World, a fact which arises partly as the result of the inclusion within her fold of a large proportion of merely nominal members whose Christianity is no more than an inherited or conventional tradition. A further point of importance is this. Two thousand years is not a long period in relation to the scale of the world's history as a whole, and Christianity is still a comparatively young religion. The problem of worldliness is mainly a problem of the relation of the Church to the social order; and there are reasons why it was natural that the working out of the Christian ideal of conduct should first have been developed in relation to the affairs of private and domestic life.

Christians in the early days were a "little flock," surrounded by a society whose standards and conventions and beliefs were frankly pagan and hostile. So long as these conditions obtained the issues were plain: the contrast in ideals between Church and World stood out sharp and clear. The world, it was held, was ready to perish, and destined at no distant date to do so. "The whole world," writes S. John, "lieth in wickedness." The Church stood apart as the spiritual brotherhood of GOD'S elect who were called to assist at the obsequies of a world which was in process of passing away. "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of GOD abideth for ever."

The words contain an eternal truth: but in their literal sense they expressed a mistaken judgment. The world—that is, secular society— did not pass away. It is with us still. For a period of some three hundred years it persecuted the Church. At the end of that period it accepted baptism, but not its implications. The Church has been engaged ever since in the task of attempting to Christianize the heathen within her own borders.

The Church was outwardly secularized: and the minority who could not tolerate the secularization of her ideals took refuge in the hermit's cell or in the cloister. In these retreats was developed the practice of Christianity as an art or science of individual sanctity, but at the cost of a certain aloofness from the rough and tumble of workaday life. The Christianity of the Middle Ages was fertilized from the cloister, with the result that the spiritual ideals even of those Christians who remained "in the world" tended to be coloured by the monastic tradition. The Christian man of the world who took seriously the practice of his religion aimed at reproducing at second hand the Christianity of the monk. The salvation of the individual soul tended to be regarded as the supreme end of Christian endeavour, rather than the service of the brethren.

The Reformation, when it came, did nothing to diminish this individualism of the religious outlook, but rather accentuated it. The whole emphasis of Protestantism was thrown upon the life of the individual soul in relation to GOD, to the comparative neglect of the importance of the conception of membership in the Church. To the ordinary worldling the advent of Protestantism meant simply that he need no longer trouble to go to Mass or to Confession. The Protestant who took his religion seriously became a Puritan, a type resembling the monk of Catholicism in his attempted isolation from the world, yet lacking the peculiar otherworldly mysticism of the monkish character at its best, and having a peculiar knack of making religion appear repellent to the ordinary man.

The emergence of the ideal of a genuinely social Christianity, aiming not at escape from the world by way of flight, but at the deliberate conquest of the world for Christ by the resolute application of Christian standards to the ordinary life of men in society, is of comparatively recent date. It began in this country with the writings of Kingsley and Maurice, and various living teachers both in England and in America have carried on their work. It is one of the misfortunes of Germany that she has had no corresponding movement. As a consequence we are confronted at the present time with the spectacle of various leaders of religious thought in Germany, too honest not to perceive the glaring contrasts between the way of the world and the precepts of the Gospel, deliberately maintaining the position that Christianity is solely adapted to be a religion of private life, and that Christian standards and ideals have no application as between class and class, or as between nation and nation. To adopt such an attitude is to abandon all hope of the redemption of society. It is to condemn the world in perpetuity to a fate of which the present war is the appropriate symbol.

The war is, in effect, a kind of sacrament of the power of Antichrist. It is the outward and visible sign of the inward character and essence of a civilisation founded upon principles which are the opposite of those of the Gospel. Neither men nor nations, in the world as we have known it, have been wont to love their neighbours as themselves. The way of the world is, and has been, the way of selfishness.

This is not any the less true because the world's selfishness has been to a considerable extent unconscious, and has arisen rather from absence of thought than from deliberate badness of heart. The world does not always realize how cruel are its ways towards the weak and the socially unfortunate, or towards those who, for whatever reason, transgress its code. For the world has a code of its own, both in manners and in morals, though the basis of its code is convention, and its standard respectability rather than virtue. The world is very apt to show itself implacable towards those whom it regards as being beyond its pale, and to exhibit, in effect, the spirit and temper which, when manifested in the religious sphere, we know and loathe as Pharisaism. Pharisaism, like worldliness, has penetrated to an alarming extent into the Church of England.

Parallel and proportionate to the world's selfishness is its cynicism. This also is largely unconscious. Lacking any true insight into spiritual realities, the world lacks vision and lacks hope. It presumes always that "the thing which has been, it is that which shall be." It beholds the evil that is done under the sun, and pronounces it inevitable. It fails to understand that to pronounce any evil inevitable is to be guilty of blasphemy against the GOD of heaven.

Against the spirit of the worldly world, its selfishness and cynicism, its conventional judgments and shallowness of mind, the Christian is called deliberately to make war. The Church exists to be to the world and its ways a permanent challenge: to be the champion in all circumstances and times of righteousness and truth; to insist upon bringing to bear on human life in all its relationships, both corporate and individual, the spirit of brotherhood, which is the Spirit of Christ. It was a true instinct which led S. Ignatius Loyola to pray on behalf of the Order which he founded that it might be hated by the world. "Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.... If ye were of the world, the world would love his own." If the world does not hate the Church it is not because the world has become Christian, but because worldliness has taken possession of the Church. The world to-day regards the Church as not worth hating, as a negligible quantity. When the Church is once more ready to be crucified, then the opposition of the world will be revived, and the Church will suffer martyrdom afresh.



CHAPTER III

THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH

Sins of the flesh include all forms of slackness and bodily self- indulgence. A Christian is called to assert the supremacy of the spirit over the flesh by controlling his bodily impulses and disciplining his desires. There is, therefore, a true Christian asceticism. But asceticism, in so far as it is genuinely Christian, is never an end in itself. It is a discipline which promotes efficiency. It is to be compared to an athlete's training, not to the self- mutilation of a fakir. There is in Christianity no doctrine of the unlawfulness of bodily pleasures in themselves. "The Son of Man came eating and drinking." For Christianity every creature of GOD in itself is good, and a man's bodily impulses are God-given endowments of his nature. What is essential is that their exercise should be controlled and subordinated to the higher purposes of the spirit, that they should be directed to their proper ends, and that they should not be allowed to get out of hand. Christians are not meant to be Puritans, but they are meant to be pure. The battle against fleshliness in all its forms is a battle which has to be fought and won in every Christian's life.

Apart from the question of certain unmentionable forms of perverted sexual vice, the sinfulness of what are commonly classified as "sins of the flesh" consists in wrongful indulgence or lack of self-control in respect of that which in itself is legitimate and good. The Christian ideal is not abstinence, but temperance. A Christian will be temperate, for example, in sleep, food, alcohol, and tobacco. Intemperance means slavery to a habit, the loss of spiritual self- mastery, whereby the whole character is enervated, and efficiency, both physical and moral, is impaired. "All things are lawful," as S. Paul says, but a Christian is not to allow himself to be brought "under the power of any." He is meant to live hard and to live clean.

The practice of fasting, that is, of deliberate temporary self- discipline in these matters, even below the standard of what would normally be a reasonable indulgence, is a valuable means of asserting and retaining the self-mastery which is essential to Christian freedom. But fasting should not be allowed to become a mechanical observance, or erected into an unduly rigid law. The fish-dinner upon Fridays and other fast-days of the Church is, as a modern dignitary has remarked, innocuous; and it has the value which belongs to conformity to a rule or recommendation of the Christian brotherhood; but whether or not it is observed in practice, it is hardly adequate by itself to the purposes of Christian self-discipline.

It appears to be a fairly widespread delusion in some sections of society that a Christian must necessarily be a teetotaller. The ideal Christian policy, here as elsewhere, if we may judge from the example of our Lord, would seem to be that of a temperate use of the gifts of GOD. It is unfortunate that in this country most of the societies which exist for the purpose of promoting temperance have virtually committed themselves to the confusion of temperance with total abstinence, and their fanaticism is, in the judgment of many persons, a hindrance to genuine reform. But it cannot reasonably be denied that drunkenness, and the still wider prevalence of an excessive drinking which falls short of actual drunkenness, is a frightful evil in the national life; and what is commonly known as the "Liquor Interest" plays a sinister part as an organized obstructive force standing in the way of needed reforms. The number of public-houses and drinking- bars in English towns and villages is monstrously out of proportion to any reasonable needs of the population: and it must be more than ordinarily difficult for brewers and publicans, under existing conditions, to resist the temptation to exploit for the sake of gain the weaknesses of others. A Christian need not be a teetotaller in order to have this problem upon his conscience, and to be ready to support, by his vote and influence, some considered and constructive policy of reform. A man who by experience finds that alcohol is to him personally a temptation will be wise if he becomes a teetotaller. "If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut it off." In certain social environments it may also be wise for a man to become a total abstainer, not in his own interests, but for the sake of others with whom he is brought into immediate contact. There can be no question but that drunkenness, which is a vice both degrading and repulsive in itself, is in many strata of English social life still far too lightly regarded.

It is, moreover, worth remarking that even a degree of indulgence in alcohol which would commonly be regarded as falling well within the limit of temperance is regarded by some authorities as having the effect—which actual drunkenness certainly has—of stimulating sexuality: and when all is said, probably the most insistent of fleshly temptations, at least in the earlier years of manhood, are those which are connected with the life of sex. Many make shipwreck upon these rocks through lack of knowledge or want of thought; but neither thought nor knowledge will avail to safeguard a man's purity apart from sound moral principle: nor are even moral principles effectual in the hour of strong temptation apart from the grace of GOD.

Christianity teaches that to every man there is entrusted, in virtue of his manhood, the seed of life as a divine treasure. It is meant not to be turned into a means of self-indulgence, or suffered to run riot in a blaze of passion, but to be restrained and safeguarded in purity against the day—if the day arrives—upon which a man is called to use it for the purpose for which it was given him, namely, that of bringing new lives into the world through union with a woman in pure marriage.

Most men are sorely tempted to lack of self-control, and to the misuse of their sexual endowment in a variety of ways: and the maintenance of chastity—never an easy ideal—is made doubly difficult by the fact that in the existing social system marriage, except among the poorer classes, is commonly deferred until an age much later than that at which a man becomes physically mature, and also by the widespread prevalence, in masculine society, of a corrupt public opinion which regards sexual indulgence as morally tolerable, or even as essential to physical health. This latter doctrine, even were it as true as it is in fact false, would not in any case justify a man in taking advantage of a woman's ruin: but experience shows that there is no form of sin or indulgence which so effectually degrades a man's moral outlook, blunts his finer perceptions, and destroys the instinct of chivalry within him, as does the sin of fornication. The majority of those who practise promiscuous sexual intercourse are found to greet with frank and obviously genuine incredulity the assertion that there exists a not inconsiderable proportion of men whose lives are clean; while at the other end of the scale men of pure lives and clean ideals often find it difficult to believe that more than a small minority of peculiarly degraded individuals are clients of the women of the streets.

The publication of the Report of the Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases, taken in conjunction with what is known or suspected with regard to the state of morals in the Army, has had the effect of drawing public attention to certain aspects of these problems. The Victorian convention of prudery has to a great extent been discarded. The subject is freely discussed, and it is generally acknowledged that something must be done. There is danger, however, lest public opinion, rightly concerned to promote measures for the eradication of disease, should ignore the essentially moral aspect of the matter. A Christian man is here concerned, not simply with the personal struggle against the temptations of sex in his own life, but with a further conflict on behalf of Christian ideals against the public opinion of the world.

For if ecclesiastical opinion in the past has been both prudish and Pharisaic, the public opinion of the world is frankly cynical. Roughly speaking, the world expects the majority of women to be pure, acquiesces in the prostitution of the remainder, and treats masculine immorality as a venial offence. Numbers of would-be reformers—of the male sex—are not ashamed to advocate, in private if not in public, the establishment of licensed brothels on the continental model. It ought not to be necessary to say that no Christian man can possibly tolerate a proposal to give deliberate public sanction to the prostitution of a certain proportion of the nation's womanhood to the lusts of men, or acquiesce in the complacent sex-selfishness which is concerned only for the physical health of sinners of the male sex.

The point of view of the Christian Church is determined by that of our Lord, who on the one hand numbered a reclaimed prostitute among His intimate friends, and on the other taught that whoso looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already in his heart. The Church, therefore, differs from the world, first in holding that what is wrong for women is equally wrong for men, that there is one and the same standard in these matters for both sexes, namely, absolute sexual purity; and secondly, in extending equally to the fallen of both sexes the promise of Divine forgiveness upon identical terms, namely, genuine repentance, unreserved confession, desire and purpose of amendment, and faith in GOD. The world, which condones the iniquity of the man who falls, is apt to be uncommonly hard upon the fallen woman, forgetting that she also is a sister for whom Christ died, and that the woman who to-day plays the part of a temptress of men was originally, in the majority of cases, more sinned against than sinning. Very few of those who ply the trade of shame will be found to have adopted such a mode of life, in the first instance, of their own unfettered choice. We are members one of another, and society as a whole, which both creates the demand and provides the supply, must share the guilt of their downfall.

This book is written primarily for men: and there are therefore other aspects of the life of sex upon which it is necessary to touch, though they are difficult matters to handle. It is well known that large numbers of men in boyhood, either through untutored ignorance of the physiology of their own bodies, or as a result of the corrupt example and teaching of others, become addicted to habits of solitary vice, in which the seed of life within them is deliberately excited, stirred up and wasted, to the sapping of their physical well-being and the defilement of their minds. Habits of self-abuse, when once they are established, are apt to be extremely difficult to break. The minds of their victims are liable to be morbidly obsessed by the physical facts of sex, and their thoughts continually directed into turbid channels. But it is possible by the grace of GOD to conquer, though there may be relapses before the final victory is won. It is important neither on the one hand to belittle the gravity of the evil, nor on the other to grow hopeless and despondent, but to have faith in GOD. It is also a counsel of common sense to distract the mind, so far as possible, in other directions, and to avoid deliberately whatever is likely to prove an occasion or stimulus to this particular form of sin. The battle of purity can only be successfully fought in the region of outward act if the victory is at the same time won in the region of thought and desire. Books and pictures, or trains of thought and imagination, which are either unclean in themselves, or are discovered by experience to be sexually exciting to particular individuals, ought obviously to be avoided by those concerned, and the mind directed towards the contemplation of whatsoever things are true and honest and just and pure and lovely and of good report. In the hour of strong temptation it is often best, instead of trying to meet the assault directly, to change the immediate environment, or in some other way to concentrate the mind: for example, to sit down and read a clean novel until the stress of the obsession is past. Physical cleanliness, plenty of healthy exercise in the open air (it is unfortunate that the circumstances of many men's lives do not give adequate opportunity for this), temperance in food, and especially—in the light of what has been said above—temperance in drink, are all incidentally of value as aids to the maintenance of purity. So also is the avoidance of the habit of lying in bed in a semi-somnolent condition after true sleep has finally departed. A Christian's body is meant to be a temple of the Holy Ghost, and no other spirit, whether of impurity or of sloth, should be allowed to have domination over him.

Other sins there are which should not be so much as named among Christian men-those, namely, in which men with men work that which is unseemly, and burn with lust one towards another. It is necessary to refer to these, because their prevalence is said to be increasing. A considerable proportion of men are temperamentally liable to be sexually attracted by members of their own sex; and passionate friendships, in which there is an element which is in the last analysis sexual, are not uncommon both between boys and youths at the age of early manhood, and between men of mature age and adolescents. The true character of these relationships is not always in their initial stages obvious, even to those concerned. As a guiding principle it may be laid down that a friendship between members of the same sex begins to enter upon dangerous ground whenever an element of jealousy betrays itself, when there is a desire habitually to monopolize the other's company to the exclusion of third persons, or when the life and interests of the one appear to be disproportionately wrapped up in the concerns and doings of the other. Friendships of this character are always selfish and may all too easily become impure. It is the business of a Christian man to be on his guard and to love his male friends not as a woman is loved and not in a spirit of selfish monopoly, but with the pure and clean and essentially unselfish affection of Christian manhood.

A word may be said, lastly, with regard to prurient and polluted talk and unclean stories. Against these a Christian man will do well firmly and resolutely to set his face. Such things defile the mind. They are injurious both to him that hears and to him that speaks, in that they tend to engender a mental atmosphere in which the suggestions of actual vice are likely to meet with an enfeebled power of resistance. Of course it is possible to be too tragical on the subject of "language," and to exaggerate the harm done by "smoking-room" stories. But whatever is definitely unclean is definitely evil, and should be both avoided and discouraged. To assume, however, a pious demeanour and to appear to be shocked is a fatal method of protest. Christians have no business to be shocked, nor are they meant to be prigs. There are other forms of social pressure which are more effective. It is, moreover, sometimes possible to combine moral reprobation with a sense of humour.



CHAPTER IV

THE WORKS OF THE DEVIL

The devil is from one point of view a figure of Jewish and Christian mythology. The Jews, like other early peoples, believed in the existence of evil spirits or demons, to whose malignant agency they ascribed various diseases, both functional and organic, and in particular those unhappy cases of obsession, fixed idea, and multiple personality, which we should now class under the general head of insanity, and treat in asylums for the mentally deranged. The New Testament writings are full of this point of view, which is of course largely foreign to our minds to-day. The ordinary Englishman is not a great believer in devils or spirits of evil: though he does in some instances believe in ghosts, and is inclined to the practice of what in former ages was called necromancy—the attempt to establish an illicit connexion with the spirits of the departed—under the modern name of psychical research. There are, no doubt, some forms of psychical research which are genuinely scientific and legitimate. It is probable enough that there exists a considerable area of what may be called borderland phenomena to which scientific methods of inquiry may be found applicable, and which it is theoretically the business of science to investigate. But it is a region in which the way lies readily open to all kinds of superstition and self-deceit. The pursuit of truth for its own sake is essentially a religious thing: but the motives of many amateur dabblers in psychical research are far from being truly religious or spiritual. Much popular spiritualism, whether it assumes the form of table-turnings, of spirit-rappings, or of mediumistic seances, is thoroughly morbid and undesirable, and the Christian Church has rightly discouraged it.

It is not, however, necessary to believe literally in the devil, or in devils—concerning whose existence many persons will prefer to remain agnostic—in order to find in the figure of the devil, as he appears in Biblical and other literature, a convenient personification of certain forms of evil. There is an atmosphere of evil about us, a Kingdom of Evil, over against the Kingdom of Good: and there are suggestions and impulses of evil which from time to time arise in our minds, which—whatever may be the literal truth about them—not infrequently present the appearance of having been prompted by some mysterious external Tempter. Certainly deeds have been done in the present war which can only be described as devilish. The war has revealed on a large scale and in unmistakable terms the evil of which the heart of man is capable, and how thin in many cases is the veneer which separates the outwardly civilized European from the primitive savage. "For this purpose was the Son of GOD manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil." And by the works of the devil we may understand especially cruelty, malice, envy, hatred and all uncharitableness, the spirit of selfishness which wars against love, and the spirit of pride which ignores GOD. We see these things exhibited upon the large scale in the conspicuous criminals among mankind, whom we are sometimes tempted to regard as devils incarnate. We need to be on our guard against the beginnings of them, and indeed in many cases their actual presence in an undetected but fairly developed form, in ourselves.

Christian men are to be kindly affectioned one towards another in brotherly love: in honour preferring one another—which is easier to say than to do. They are to refrain from rendering evil for evil, and to learn under provocation to be self-controlled. They are to be in charity with all men, and so far as it lies within their own power (for it takes two to make peace, as it takes two to make a quarrel) they are to live peaceably with all men. Wrath and clamour, lying and evil-speaking, back-biting and slandering, are all of the devil, devilish. Contrary to the works of the devil, which may be summed up under the three headings of lying, hatred, and pride, are the Christian ideals of truthfulness, love, and humility, with regard to each of which a few words may usefully be said.

(i) The devil is described in the New Testament as "a liar and the father thereof." A Christian is to be true and just in all his dealings, abhorring crookedness: for the essence of lying is not inexactitude in speech, but deceitfulness of intention. Christian veracity means honesty, straightforwardness, and sincerity in deed as well as in word. A writer of fiction is not a liar: to improve in the telling an anecdote or a story is not necessarily to deceive others in any culpable sense; and moralists have from time to time discussed the question whether there may not be circumstances in which to tell a verbal lie is even a moral duty—e.g. in order to prevent a murderer or a madman from discovering the whereabouts of his intended victim. But casuistical problems of this kind do not very frequently arise, and in all ordinary circumstances strict literal veracity is the right course to pursue. [Footnote: Of course such social conventions as "Not at home," "No trouble at all," or "Glad to see you," "No, you are not interrupting me," etc., are hardly to be classed as "lies," since they do not as a rule seriously mislead others, but are merely an expression of the will to be civil.]

Christian truthfulness, however, is in any case a much wider thing than merely verbal truth-telling: it implies inward spiritual reality, a genuine desire to see things as they are, a thirst of the soul for truth, and a hatred of shams. The worst form of lying is that in which a man is not merely a deceiver of others but is self-deceived, and suffers from "the lie in the soul." The religion of Christ is always remorselessly opposed to every form or kind of humbug or of sham. Jesus Christ is the supreme spiritual realist of history. In His view the "publican" or acknowledged sinner is preferable to the Pharisee or hypocrite for the precise reason that the former is a more genuine kind of person than the latter. And to tell the truth in this deeper sense, that is, genuinely to face realities and to refuse to be put off with shams, to see through the plausibilities and to detect the hollowness of moral and social pretences and conventionalities, to have, in short, the spiritual and moral instinct for reality, is a much harder thing than to be verbally veracious. The true veracity can come only from Him who is the Truth: it is a gift of the Spirit, and proceeds from GOD who knows the counsels of men's hearts, and discerns the motives and imaginations of their minds.

It follows that just as every lie is of the devil, so all truth, of whatever kind, is of GOD. The Lord is a God of Knowledge, and every form of intellectual timidity and obscurantism is contrary to godliness. There can never be any opposition between scientific and religious truth, since both equally proceed from GOD. The Christian Church is ideally a society of free-thinkers, that is, of men who freely think, and the genuine Christian tradition has always been to promote learning and freedom of inquiry. It is worth remembering that the oldest and most justly venerable of the Universities of Europe are without exception in their origin ecclesiastical foundations. If the love of truth and the spirit of freedom which inspired their inception has at particular epochs in their history been temporarily obscured, if there is much in the ecclesiasticism both of the past and of the present which is reactionary in tendency and spirit, at least there have never been lacking protesting voices, and the authentic spirit of the Gospel tells always upon the other side. "Ye shall know the truth," says a New Testament writer, "and the truth shall make you free." [Footnote: The manifestations of the persecuting spirit and temper are not confined to the sphere of religion; the intolerance of the platform or of the press can be as bigoted as that of the pulpit: and secular governments also can persecute—not only in France or in Prussia. That it is part of the mission of Christianity to cast out the evil spirit of persecution, to destroy intolerance as it has destroyed slavery, is none the less true, in spite of the fact that both slavery and persecution have in the past found Christian defenders.]

(ii) In the second place, hatred is of the devil, and love is of Christ: the Christian is to love even his enemies. In a time of war, that is to say, whenever actual enemies exist, the natural man discovers in such an ideal only an immoral sentimentalism, and the doctrinaire pacificist occasionally uses language which gives colour to the charge. But Christianity has nothing in common with sentimentalism, and Christian is no merely sentimental affection which ignores the reality of evil or explains away the wrongfulness of wrong. In order to love his enemies it is not necessary for a Christian to pretend that they are not really hostile, to make excuses for things that are inexcusable, or to be blind to the moral issues which may be at stake. It has rightly been pointed out that "Love your enemies" means "Want them to be your friends: want them to alter, so that friendship between you and them may become possible." More generally what is meant is that the Christian man is by the grace of GOD, to conquer the instinct of hatred and the spirit of revenge within his own heart, to be willing to serve others (his enemies included) at cost to himself in accordance with the will of GOD, to desire on behalf of all men (his enemies included) the realization of their true good. For wrongdoers chastisement may be the truest kindness. To allow a man, or a nation, to pursue an evil purpose unchecked would be no real act of love even towards the nation or the individual concerned. To offer opposition, if necessary by force, may in certain circumstances be a plain duty. That which we are to love, in those whose immediate aspect and character is both unlovely and unlovable, is not what they are, but what they are capable of becoming. We are to love that element in them which is capable of redemption, the true spiritual image of GOD in man, which can never be totally effaced. We are to remember that for them also the Son of GOD was crucified, that we also have need of forgiveness, and that "GOD commendeth His own love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."

(iii) The third great manifestation of the spirit and temper which is of the devil, devilish, is pride, which by Christian writers upon these subjects is commonly regarded as the deadliest of the so-called "deadly sins," on the ground that it logically involves the assertion of a false claim to be independent of GOD, and is therefore fatal in principle to the religious life. Pagan systems of morality distinguish between false pride, the foolish conceit of the man who claims for himself virtues and capacities which he does not in fact possess, and proper pride, the entirely just appreciation by a man of his own merits and accomplishments at neither more nor less than their true value. The Christian ideal of humility is apt from this point of view to appear either slavish or insincere. The issue between Christian and pagan morals here depends upon the truth or falsehood of the Christian doctrine of GOD and of His relation to man. Once let a man take seriously the avowal that "It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves," once let him grant the position that his life belongs to GOD and not to himself, and concur in the judgment of spiritual experience that whatever is good in him is the result not of his own efforts in independence of his Maker, but of the Divine Spirit operative within him, and it becomes obvious that "boasting"—as S. Paul expresses it—"is excluded."

At the same time Christian humility is not self-depreciation. It has nothing in common either with the spirit of Uriah Heep, or with the false diffidence which refuses on the ground of personal insufficiency a task or vocation to which a man is genuinely called. These are both equally forms of self-consciousness. Humility is forgetfulness of self. The true pattern and exemplar of humility is the Christ, who claimed for Himself the greatest role in the whole history of the world, simply on the ground that it was the work which His Father had given Him to do. "I seek not Mine own glory: there is One that seeketh and judgeth." The secret of humility is devotion to the will of GOD.



CHAPTER V

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Christianity in the last three chapters has been considered on its negative side as involving a conflict against temptation. But the Christian ideal is positive rather than negative. We have only to think for a moment of the character and life of Christ in order to realize how ludicrously impoverished a conception of the Gospel righteousness is that which regards it as exhausted by the meticulous avoidance of sin. "Christian purity," it has been said, "is not a snowy abstinence but a white-hot passion of life towards GOD." The same might be said of other Christian virtues. Positively regarded, the Christian ideal of life means sonship towards GOD and citizenship in His Kingdom.

The precise signification of the phrase, "Kingdom of GOD," or "Kingdom of Heaven," in the language of the New Testament has been the theme of controversy and discussion among scholars. It is impossible to enter here into the technicalities of the dispute. Broadly speaking, it may be laid down without much fear of contradiction that the Kingdom of GOD means the effectual realization, in every department of human life and upon a universal scale, of the sovereignty of GOD as Christ reveals Him. It is the vision of the goal of human history. It is meant to be a leading motive and inspiration of Christian life.

"I will not cease from mental strife, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land."

It is quite true that, according to the thought of the New Testament writers, the mystic Jerusalem is not a city built by mortal men upon this earth, but something which is wholly the gift of GOD, a city not made with hands, descending from GOD out of heaven. The Kingdom of GOD in its fulness is no product of human striving. It is the achievement of a Divine purpose, the manifestation in the end of the days of the completed mystery of the Divine Will.

Nevertheless it is the mission of the Church to prepare the way of the Kingdom, and it is for Christian men to live as sons of the Divine Kingdom even now, that is, as men in whose hearts and lives GOD and none other is enthroned as King and Lord. This means that everything that is good in human life is to be redeemed by being offered to GOD, and that everything that is vile and evil is to be eliminated and cast out. "The Son of Man shall send forth His messengers, and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend." "There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie." "The Kingdom of GOD is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."

The ideal of the Christian life, therefore, is something infinitely richer and more positive than the merely negative morality of the Ten Commandments. It is the ideal of the Divine Kingdom. It is a positive devotion to the will of GOD. It means co-operation with the Divine will and purpose, a will and a purpose which, by the patient operation of the Divine Spirit, is in the course of world-history slowly but surely being worked out, amid all the immediate chaos and welter of events, to its goal in the revelation of the Jerusalem which is from above. That is why the Christian is bidden to pray continually, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven."

If a man does not want the Divine Kingdom, or does not believe in it, he ought not to pray for it. If he does want it and pray for it, he ought also to work for it. And though no man may fully understand it, yet if a man is to pray for it and work for it at all, he needs to have at least some partial understanding of what it means. It is worth while, therefore, instead of dismissing the idea as a vague dream or an empty phrase, to try and fill it with some measure of positive meaning for us men here and now. What is the will of GOD for humanity? And what is meant by preparing the way of the Lord? Some things at least we may say are certainly included in the will of GOD, and some things are as certainly excluded.

"It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." A Christian Church which took seriously its vocation to go before the Lord and to prepare His ways would be effectively and vigorously concerned with problems so prosaic as the rate of infantile mortality and the allied questions of housing and sanitation, with the insistence that the conditions of life among the poorer classes of the community shall be such as make decent living possible, and with the provision of a minimum of leisure and of genuine opportunities of liberal education for all who have the will and the capacity to profit by them. The combined ignorance and apathy of the people of England with regard to questions of education, which has made possible the shelving of Mr. Fisher's Education Bill in deference to the opposition of vested interests, is little to the credit of the Christian Church in these islands, and grievously disappointing to those who had hoped at last for a real instalment of constructive reform. [Footnote: It is now stated that the Bill is to be reintroduced and passed, with certain modifications. It is to be hoped that the modifications will not be such as to destroy its effectiveness as an instrument of real reform. It remains true that the Bill was imperilled by the apathy and ignorance of the rank and file of Churchmen and Christians generally, though it is fair to say that the Bishops demonstrated unanimously in its favour.]

A system of education, moreover, which was truly Christian, would provide not merely for the training of mind and body, and for instruction—on the basis of some inter-denominational modus vivendi yet to be achieved—in morality and religion. It would secure equally for the children of all classes opportunities for the training of the aesthetic faculties, for the cultivation of art and imagination, for the filling of life with colour and variety and movement. The intolerable ugliness of the domestic architecture of our cities and towns is a totally unnecessary offence to GOD and man; and the drabness and monotony of the life of huge masses of the population, who find in the rival attractions of the gin-palace and the cinema the only means of distraction at present open to them—this also is something which cannot possibly be regarded as being in accordance with the will of GOD. The redemption of society from all that at present makes human life sordid or hideous is a real part of what the ideal of the Kingdom means. It is a part of the task laid upon the Christian Church in preparing the way of the Lord and making straight His paths.

Included also in the will of GOD for humanity is the evangelization of the world, the perfecting of the Church, the bringing of all nations and races into a spiritual unity in Christ Jesus. Christianity claims by its very nature to be the absolute religion: the climax and fulfilment of the whole process of man's religious quest: the synthetic and unifying truth, in which whatever is true and positive and permanently valuable in the religious systems of the non-Christian world is gathered up and made complete. Of Christ it has been written that "How many soever be the promises of GOD, in Him is the yea." In Christ is the fulfilment of the unconscious prophecies of the religions of the heathen world, nor is there any true solution of the problems of comparative religion except this. The Christian Church is in principle and of necessity missionary, and apart from the vitalizing breath of the missionary spirit the life of the Church languishes and dies.