A half-Christianised world and a more than half-secularised Church get
on well together. 'When they do agree, their agreement is wonderful.'
And it is a miserable thing to reflect that about the average
Christianity of this generation there is so very little that does
deserve the antagonism of the world. Why should the world care to hate
or trouble itself about a professing Church, large parts of which are
only a bit of the world under another name? There is no need whatever
that there should be any antagonism at all between a godless world and
hosts of professing Christians. If you want to escape the hostility
drop your flag, button your coat over the badge that shows that you
belong to Christ, and do the things that the people round about you do,
and you will have a perfectly easy and undisturbed life.
Of course, in the bad old slavery days, a Christianity that had not a
word to say about the sin of slave-holding ran no risk of being tarred
and feathered. Of course a Christianity in Manchester that winks hard
at commercial immoralities is very welcome on the Exchange. Of course a
Christianity that lets beer barrels alone may reckon upon having
publicans for its adherents. Of course a Christianity that blesses
flags and sings _Te Deums_ over victories will get its share of the
spoil. Why should the world hate, or persecute, or do anything but
despise a Christianity like that, any more than a man need to care for
a tame tiger that has had its claws pared? If the world can put a hook
in the nostrils of leviathan, and make him play with its maidens, it
will substitute good-nature, half contemptuous, for the hostility which
our Master here predicts. It was out-and-out Christians that He said
the world would hate; the world likes Christians that are like itself.
Christian men and women! be you sure that you deserve the hostility
which my text predicts.