highest grade of all; indeed, they are instructed that it is only by this imitative ceremony—called, technically, taking up the Cross—that they can be exalted to the Master's place. And as to the point of view which is not distinctively Christian, that point of view which confesses the creed: "There is a God of infinite amiability ruling over a world which is an extremely pleasant place, or which can be made an extremely pleasant place by the passing of a few short Bills in Parliament"—well, let us never heed them. For there is no God of infinite amiability—infinite love is a different matter—and the world of the natural order isn't a very pleasant place, never has been a very pleasant place, and never will be a very pleasant place, so long as water drowns and fire burns and steel cuts flesh, and lightning destroys this body.
