forbidding to marry, sometimes by the condemnation of wine or of tobacco, or of the drama; interested almost exclusively in individual salvation, often from the purely selfish point of view, and curiously indifferent to the salvation of the poor and the oppressed from misery and vice—for the desire of social service is only now becoming a characteristic of strictly religious circles, an encouraging sign that religious people are becoming more Christian.
Has not some such impression as this been fairly universal in Christendom? And has it been without justification? Public opinion has been just enough in giving religious folk credit for avoiding the grosser sins. Has it not been just here also in its criticism?
Yet if religious people showed the characteristic fruits of the Spirit, how popular they would be!
The truth is that Christianity is very difficult for us all. 'How very hard it is', wrote Browning in a burst of simplicity, 'to be a Christian!' So far from being an old-fashioned religion, it is so blazingly modern that we have only begun to touch it here and there. We are still the Primitive Church; we have not even as yet arrived at the simplest system of organization which can hold us all together. We have not yet formed a society; but are still tearing through history like robber-bands, intent on capture, and firing at one another. The world takes up arms occasionally; the Church fights all the time.
Still less have we arrived at the practice of the
