THE BEATITUDES IN DETAIL
I
“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.”
THE Old Testament is full of descriptions of the spirit of the world,
the spirit of selfish wealth with its attendant cruelty: and by
contrast to this are descriptions of the oppressed poor who are the
friends of God. Our Lord took up all this language upon His own lips
when, as St. Luke records, He turned to His disciples and said “Blessed
are ye poor ... woe unto you that are rich.” But all the actually
poor are not the disciples of Christ. It is possible to combine the
selfishness and grasping avarice of “the rich” with the condition of
poverty. So our Lord has, as recorded by St. Matthew, gone beneath the
surface and based His kingdom, the character of His citizens, not upon
actual poverty, but upon detachment. The world says “Get all you can,
and keep it.” Christ says, Blessed are those who at least in heart and
will have nothing.
There is one verse in the Old Testament which describes this poverty
of spirit. It is the utterance of Job:[14] “The Lord gave, and the
Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” There is pure,
perfect detachment. Job took and used aright what God gave him, adoring
the sovereignty of God. The sovereign took away what He had given; Job
gave it up freely. Being detached――that is poverty of spirit; at the
least, “having food and covering, let us be therewith content.”[15]
Our Lord says then, Blessed are those who are thus detached;
and of course we look to Him for illustration, for these beatitudes
express His own character. He was detached. The Incarnation was a
self-emptying. He clung not to all the glories of heaven, but “emptied
Himself” and “beggared Himself,” as St. Paul says.[16] Then when He had
been born a man, He set the example of clinging to nothing external.
He abandoned ease, popularity, the favour of the great, even the
sympathy of His friends, even, last and greatest of all, on the cross,
the consolation of the divine presence. Each privilege in turn was
abandoned without a murmur, not, speaking generally, on the ascetic
principle, but because moral obedience to God in fulfilment of His
mission required it. He became utterly naked, poorer than the poorest;
therefore in a supreme sense “His was the kingdom of heaven.” He stood
empty, persecuted, before Pilate, and said “Thou sayest that I am a
king”; and the moral conscience of the world has witnessed that He
spoke truth. So we, like Him, are to be ready to surrender, ready to
give up; and in proportion to this detachment, in proportion as we do
really in will adore the sovereignty of God, and are ready to receive
and to give up according to His will, in that proportion are all the
hindrances removed by which the royalty of His kingdom is prevented
from entering into our hearts and lives. St. Paul’s comment on this
first beatitude lies in his description of the apostles “As having
nothing, and yet possessing all things”; or in his encouragement to
Christians generally “All things are yours.”[17] The wilfulness with
which we cling to supposed “necessaries of life,” “things we cannot do
without”; false claims on life for enjoyments which we should be the
stronger for dispensing with; false ideals of vanity and display――these,
and not our circumstances, are the hindrances to that largeness of
heart and peace and liberty and joy, which have their root only in the
bare and naked relation of the soul to God.
The splendid promise attached to this beatitude brings it into contrast
with an old Jewish saying which has many parallels, “Ever be more and
more lowly in spirit, for the prospect of man is to become the food
of worms.” The motive to humility which our Lord suggests is very
different.
Before we pass on, let us observe how important it is that there
should be at all times those in the Church who are capable, not merely
of poverty in spirit, but voluntarily of poverty in fact. Upon all
men our Lord enjoins detachment. But upon one young man in particular
He enjoined that he should give his possessions away, that he should
sell all that he had and give to the poor. So in the Church there have
been those who in the religious orders have dedicated themselves in
voluntary poverty to the service of God and of man; and the Church
has lost incalculably in ages when there have been none such. Like
all other institutions, the religious orders have been liable to great
abuses: they have been homes very often, not so much of scandalous
vices, as of sloth and corporate greed; but we must not give up the
ideal because there are abuses. There is the command of the Lord to all
to be, like Job, detached; there is the counsel of the Lord to some to
be, in fact, voluntarily poor.
II
“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”
These beatitudes follow one another, as St. Chrysostom says, in a
golden chain. Once again our Lord is putting Himself in startling
opposition to one of the favourite maxims of the world. The world says
“Get as much pleasure as you can out of life; suck it in wherever you
can; and hug yourself as close as you can from all that disquiets you
or makes you uncomfortable; in a word, get as much pleasure and avoid
as much pain as by intelligence and forethought you can possibly do.”
In startling opposition to this maxim of the world our Lord puts His
maxim “Blessed are they that mourn.”
What does that mean? Briefly: there are two chief kinds of mourning
into which it is the duty of every true servant of our Lord to
enter――the mourning for sin and the mourning for pain. We must mourn
for sin, for we are sinners. It is possible to hide the fact from
our eyes, to prevent the inconvenient light from coming in upon our
consciences, to suppose that things that are widely tolerated must be
tolerable, that things that are frequently or habitually done must have
something to say for themselves. But the Christian gets into the light;
he lets the light of the divine word go down into his heart; he strives
to see himself first, in the silence of his own soul, as the Lord
sees him. Thus he is brought to repentance, and repentance which is in
regard to the future a “change of purpose,” is with respect to the past
a true mourning: if not emotional sorrow, still profound and heartfelt
regret on account of those things in which we have gone against the
will of God: and “blessed are they that mourn.”
Next to this mourning for sin is the mourning of sympathy with others’
pain. There are moments when a Christian may legitimately, like his
Lord in the garden of Gethsemane, be engrossed in the bearing of “his
own burden.”[18] But in the main a Christian ought, like his Lord, or
like St. Paul, to have his own burden so well in hand, that he is able
to leave the large spaces of his heart for other people to lay their
sorrows upon. “Bear ye one another’s burdens.”[19] Of our Lord it was
said “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our diseases”[20]――not on
the cross simply, but as He moved about in Galilee and Judæa, and the
sad, the sorrowful and the sick came to Him. It is always possible to
use the advantages of a comparatively prosperous position to exempt
ourselves, to screen ourselves off, from the common lot of pain. This
is to shut ourselves off from true fruitfulness and final joy. “Except
a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself
alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit. He that loveth his life,
loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto
life eternal.”[21] “Blessed are they that mourn.”
“He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend.
Eternity mourns that. ’Tis an ill cure
For life’s worst ills, to have no time to feel them.
Where sorrow’s held intrusive and turn’d out
There wisdom will not enter, nor true power,
Nor aught that dignifies humanity.”
And in proportion to the fullness with which you enter into penitence
for sin and into sympathy for the sufferings of men, you shall get, not
the miserable laughter of forgetfulness, which lasts but for a moment,
but the comfort (or encouragement) of God. “That we may be able to
comfort them that are in any affliction, through the comfort wherewith
we ourselves are comforted of God.”[22] “The sorrow of the world
worketh death,” but “godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation,
not to be repented of.[23]” “Blessed are they that mourn: for they
shall be comforted.”
And here, by way of warning, let me point out that there is a false
as well as a true mourning. It is possible to be discontented with
the world but to lack the courage of faith which makes our discontent
fruitful of reform. It is possible to be discontented with ourselves,
and yet never so simply and humbly make our confession to God our
Father as to get the joy which comes of being forgiven. We are
discontented; but our discontent is pride, not the humility of true
sorrow. It will not be comforted, it will not thankfully take the
divine offer of absolution. The “woman that was a sinner” made no delay
in believing herself forgiven, but set to work at once to show the
love which springs of gratitude in the heart of those who accept their
release. The false sorrow of pride was noticed by one of the leaders of
monasticism in the west――Cassian, who describes and contrasts thus the
true sorrow and the false:[24]
“But that sorrow which ‘worketh repentance unto stable salvation’ is
obedient, approachable, humble, amiable, gentle and patient, inasmuch
as it comes down from the love of God and, inspired with the desire
of perfection, gives itself over unweariedly to all pain of body and
contrition of spirit; and having a happiness of its own and a vitality
which comes from the hope of progress, it keeps all the amiability of
an approachable and patient disposition, possessing in itself all the
fruits of the Holy Spirit which the apostle enumerates. But the false
sorrow is bitter, impatient, hard, full of rancour and fruitless grief,
and penal despair, breaking off and recalling the man whom it has
got into its grasp from industry and salutary sorrow, because it is
irrational, and not only impedes the efficacy of prayers but also
empties out of the soul all those spiritual fruits which the true
sorrow knows how to impart.”
III
“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.”
Still our Lord is explaining the character of the kingdom by contrast
to the ideals of the world. The world says “Stand up for your rights;
make the most of yourself; don’t let any man put upon you.” And so we
are always standing on our dignity, always thinking ourselves insulted
or imposed upon. “Blessed are the meek,” our Lord says. The meek――that
is manifestly, those who are ready to be put upon as far as they
themselves are concerned. This is the character of our Lord, who,
“when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened
not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.”[25]
Of course, from another point of view, we may be quite bound from time
to time to assert ourselves. Our Lord recognizes that, as we shall have
an opportunity of noticing in another connexion. We may have to assert
ourselves for the sake of the moral order of the church and of the
world. But no one gets true peace, or has really got to the foundation
of things, until, as far as his own dignity is concerned, he is in a
position to say, You can wrong God and you can wrong society; and it
may be my duty to stand up for God and for society; but me, as far as
I am concerned, you cannot provoke. That is the ideal to which we have
to attain. That is the meekness which is appropriate to sinners like
ourselves who know what we deserve, who _on a general review of life_
can seldom feel that we are suffering unmerited wrong; but it is the
meekness also of the sinless and righteous one.
And the result of this entire absence of self-assertion is that we can
make no claim on the world which God will not at the last substantiate.
“Blessed are the meek”――our Lord is here quoting the psalm――“for
they shall _inherit_ the earth.”[26] What is an heir? An heir is a
person who enters into rightful possession. He is in no fear that any
other can ever come and turn him out. He moves at ease amongst his
possessions, because the things that he inherits are really his. No one
with a better claim can come to oust him. Now, if we go about the world
making claims on society which God does not authorize, refusing to bear
what God will have us bear, the day will come when the true Master
appears, and we shall be exposed to shame. We have made claims which He
did not authorize; we have asserted ourselves where He gave us no right
or title to assert ourselves; we shall be ousted. But the meek, who
ever committed themselves to Him that judgeth righteously, have nothing
to fear. “Friend, come up higher,” is all that is before them. They
will simply, in steady and royal advance, enter into the full heritage
of that which men kept back from them, but God has in store for them.
IV
“Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness:
for they shall be filled.”
In strong, bold outlines our Lord has begun by sketching for us the
character of His citizens in marked contrast to the ideals of the world.
But He is not satisfied with giving us these, as it were, negative
characteristics; He passes on to more positive traits. The citizens
of the new kingdom “hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Every one
knows what appetite is, what hunger and thirst mean. It is a strong
craving, a craving which must be satisfied, or we perish. You cannot
forget that you are hungry or thirsty. And in human pursuits we again
and again see what is like hunger and thirst. You see an appetite
for place; a man is bent upon it; he will by whatever means get that
position which his soul desires. So again you see in men’s amusements
a similar craving. Go to the side of the Thames at Putney, and you may
see two crews of eight men practising there for a famous race, their
supporters and backers looking on. All is eagerness, and there is not
the slightest betrayal of consciousness that anything in the world
could be more important than the winning of that race. That is what
may be truly called a hunger and thirst. And such is the appetite
for righteousness which possesses the citizens of our Lord’s kingdom.
Righteousness, or rather _the_ righteousness, that character which God
has marked out for us, the character of Christ――blessed are they which
do hunger and thirst after it.
Brethren, we so often feel hopeless about getting over our faults. Let
us hunger and thirst after righteousness, and we shall be filled. As
our Lord saw of the travail of His soul and was satisfied, so, depend
upon it, shall we. If you only seriously want to be good, your progress
may be slow, but at the last you will be good. Christ is pledged to
satisfy, if only you will go on wanting. There is not in the pursuit
of goodness any failure except in ceasing to hunger and thirst――that
is, in ceasing to want, to pray, to try. Do you want righteousness
seriously, deliberately? Then you can have it, and not for yourself
only, but for the world. “Till righteousness turn again unto judgement,
all such as are true in heart shall follow it.” It is pledged to
us. The day will come when the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of
righteousness and meekness and truth, shall be an established and
a visible fact. Blessed are they that here and now hunger and thirst
after righteousness in themselves and in the world: for they shall be
filled.
V
“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”
Of course wherever human misery is, there is also human pity. But,
apart from Christ, it was not thought of as a motive force, to be
used in redeeming others’ lives and in enriching our own. The Buddha,
indeed, one of the purest and noblest men who have ever lived, was
first awakened from the dream of luxury, in which he had been brought
up, by the threefold spectacle of human misery――decrepitude, disease
and death. And once awakened, he made his “great renunciation”: he
abandoned his royal state: after much searching, he discovered for
himself, as he thought, the way of emancipation from life and, being
filled with compassion, taught it to others. But he believed life
to be radically an evil. He could imagine no redemption _of_ life but
only escape _from_ it. The philosopher Aristotle, who examined and
catalogued human qualities, could not have failed to come across the
fact of pity. But he seems even to have regarded it as a troublesome
emotion――a disturbing force which had better be got rid of in practical
concerns. The Greek tragedy, which by its marvellous presentations
of the weakness of man was calculated to evoke the sentiment of pity
in great intensity, he regarded as a vent or outlet for the emotion
which in this way could be purged off and leave the Greek citizen in
untroubled serenity in face of actual life. It is to be feared that we
very often use the drama and literature in this way. We let our emotion
of pity be stirred by the pictures of human misfortune presented to
us, and we find a luxury in the indulgence of the emotion. But it
is a luxury, and nothing more. It leads to no effective action for
the removing of the misery which we deplore. This is pagan. For the
disciple of Christ pity is a motive to vigorous action. God in Christ
declares His “power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity.” Powerful
pity is pity which passes from emotion into practical and redemptive
action. Of such pity only does Christ say “Blessed are the merciful or
pitiful.” Compassion which does nothing is in the New Testament[27]
regarded as a form of pernicious hypocrisy.
And the merciful shall obtain mercy. Here we get a great law of the
divine dealing. God deals with us as we deal with our fellow-men. In
the Old Testament[28] it is said “With the merciful thou, God, wilt
show thyself merciful; with the perfect man thou wilt show thyself
perfect; with the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the
perverse thou wilt show thyself froward.” And again, in our Lord’s
parable,[29] when the servant who had been let off his debts by his
master was found to deal unmercifully with his fellow-servant who was
indebted to him, the remission was cancelled, and the weight of his old
debt fell back upon him, to teach us that God deals with us as we deal
with our fellow-men. Thus again, in view of the last great day, our
Lord says “Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these my brethren,
come ye blessed, inherit the kingdom.” So in our Lord’s Prayer, we pray
“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against
us.” Do we want to know how our Lord will regard us at the last day?
We can find the answer by considering how our face looks, not in mere
passing emotion, but in its serious and deliberate aspect, towards our
fellow-men. God deals with us then, as we deal with our fellows. Nor
need we confine the principle to God’s dealings with us. The same law
is observable in the treatment we receive at men’s hands. On the whole
we can determine men’s attitude to us by our attitude to them. Almost
all men have their best selves drawn out towards a really compassionate
life. “Perchance for a _good_ man――one who is not only just, but
good――some would even dare to die.”[30] “Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.”
VI
“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”
If we take part in the kingdom, there must be singleness of purpose.
Purity of heart is, of course, continually taken in its narrower
meaning of absence of sensual defilement and pollution. That is an
important part of purity; and may I say a word about the pursuit of
purity in this narrower sense? A great many people are distressed by
impure temptations, and they very frequently fail to make progress with
them for one reason, namely, that while they are anxious to get rid
of sin in this one respect, they are not trying after goodness as a
whole. Uncleanness of life and heart they dislike. It weighs upon their
conscience and destroys their self-respect. But they have no similar
horror of pride, or irreverence, or uncharity. People very often say
that it is impossible to lead a “pure” life. The Christian minister
is not pledged to deny this, if a man will not try to be religious
all round, to be Christ-like altogether. For the way to get over
uncleanness is, in innumerable cases, not to fight against that only,
but to contend for positive holiness all round, for Christlikeness, for
purity of heart in the sense in which Christ used the expression, in
the sense in which in the 51st Psalm a clean heart is coupled with a
“right spirit”――that is, a will set straight towards God, or simplicity
of purpose. There is an old Latin proverb――“Unless the vessel is clean,
whatever you pour into it turns sour.” It is so with the human will.
Unless the human will is directed straight for God, whatever you put
into the life of religious and moral effort has a root of bitterness
and sourness in it which spoils the whole life. Our Lord means “Blessed
are the single-minded,” for they, though as yet they may be far from
seeing God, though as yet they may not believe a single article of the
Christian Creed, yet at last shall attain the perfect vision; yes, as
surely as God is true, they shall be satisfied in their every capacity
for truth and beauty and goodness; they shall behold God.
Any measure of true spiritual illumination, like that of Job when
the Lord had answered his questionings, may be described as “seeing
God;” and in this sense to see God is a necessary preliminary to
repentance[31] and is requisite for spiritual endurance.[32] But in
its full sense it is incompatible with any remaining dissatisfaction;
it is the final goal of human efforts, the reward of those who
here are content to “walk by faith, not by sight,” and it includes
in perfection――what in a measure all discovery after search
includes――satisfaction for the intellect, and full attainment for
the will, and the ecstasy of the heart, in God as He is.
VII
“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of
God.”
Christ is the Prince of Peace. He brings about peace among men,
breaking down all middle walls of partition between classes and
races and individuals, by making them first of all at peace with
God――atonement among men by way of atonement with God. This is the only
secure basis of peace. There are many kinds of false and superficial
peace, which the Prince of Peace only comes to break up. “I came not to
send peace on earth, but a sword.”[33] Peace can never be purchased in
God’s way by the sacrifice of truth. But peace in the truth we, like
our Master, must be for ever pursuing.
Do we habitually remember how it offends our Lord to see divisions
in the Christian Church, nations nominally Christian armed to the
teeth against one another, class against class and individual against
individual in fierce and relentless competition, jealousies among
clergy and church-workers, communicants who forget that the sacrament
of union with Christ is the sacrament of union also with their
fellow-men?
Christians are to be makers of Christ’s peace. Something we can all
do to reconcile individuals, families, classes, churches, nations. The
question is, Are we, as churchmen and citizens, by work and by prayer,
in our private conduct and our public action, doing our utmost with
deliberate, calculated, unsparing effort? If so our benediction is the
highest: it is to be, and to be acknowledged as being, sons of God.
VIII
“Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’
sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
There has now been given the picture of the Christian character in its
wonderful attractiveness――that detachment, that readiness to enter into
the heritage of human pain, that self-suppressing meekness and humility
towards our fellow-men, that strong passion for righteousness, that
effective compassion, that singleness of heart, that striving for peace.
Yet, where it is not welcomed, it stings by its very beauty, it hardens
by its very holiness. Thus there came about the strange result, that
when that character was set in its perfection before men’s eyes in the
person of our Lord, they would not have it. They set upon Him and slew
Him. It is in full view of this consequence of being righteous that our
Lord speaks this last beatitude: and He gives it pointed and particular
application to His disciples.
“Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you,
and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in
heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before
you.”
THE PLACE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER IN THE WORLD.
As soon as ever a man sets himself seriously to aim at this Christian
character, the devil at once puts this thought into his mind――Am I not
aiming at what is too high to be practicable? am I not aiming too high
to do any good? If I am to help men, surely I must be like them? I must
not be so unworldly, if I am to help men in this sort of world. Now our
Lord at once anticipates this kind of argument. He says at once, as it
were, No, you are to help men by being unlike them. You are to help men,
not by offering them a character which they shall feel to be a little
more respectable than their own, but by offering them a character
filled with the love of God. They may mock it for a while; but in the
“day of visitation,” in the day when trouble comes, in the day when
they are thrown back on what lies behind respectability, in the day
when first principles emerge, they will glorify God for the example
you have given them. They will turn to you then, because they will
feel that you have something to show them that will really hold water,
something that is really and eternally worth having.
Thus our Lord at once proceeds to answer the question, How is a
character such as the beatitudes describe, planted in a world such as
this is, to effect good? It is to purify by its own distinctive savour,
it is to be conspicuous by its own splendid truth to its ideal, it is
to arrest attention by its powerful contrast to the world about it.
This is the meaning of the metaphors which follow the beatitudes:
“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its
savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for
nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men. Ye
are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid.”
“Ye are the salt of the earth.” Salt is that which keeps things pure
by its emphatic antagonistic savour. “Ye are the light of the world.”
Light is that which burns distinctively in the darkness. “A city that
is set on a hill” is a marked object, arresting attention over a whole
country side.
“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savour,
wherewith shall it be salted?” The savour of a Christianity which does
not mean what it says, wherewith can it be salted? How can it recover
its position and influence? Would it not be better never to have been
Christians at all than to be Christians who do not mean what they
say? What is so useless as a hollow profession of religion? “It is
thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot
of men.” “I would thou wert cold or hot. So because thou art lukewarm,
and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth.”[34]
Christians exist in order to make the contrast of their own lives
apparent to the world.
“Neither do men light a lamp, and put it under the bushel, but
on the stand; and it shineth unto all that are in the house.
Even so let your light shine before men, that they may see your
good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
We may point the significance of this teaching of our Lord by
contrasting it with that of another great religious teacher. We have
often heard it said that more people are good Mohammedans in Mohammedan
countries than good Christians in Christian countries. That may be
true, and for this reason: Mohammed set before his disciples an ideal
of conduct calculated to commend itself naturally to the people he
had to do with. Supposing no fundamental change of character, no real
transformation, was required of them, he saw that they would be ready
enough to observe religious ceremonies, and to fight, and to abstain
from drink. He fastened on these things. These, he said, are what
God requires of you. And he has won a high measure of success on the
average. Mohammedans have been conspicuous for courage and temperance
and regularity in the transaction of religious forms. But just because
Mohammed was so easily satisfied, his religion has been a religion of
stagnation. He neither aimed at nor effected any regeneration of man.
But our Lord said “Except a man be born again,”――i.e. unless so
fundamental a change take place in him, that it can only be compared to
a fresh birth――“he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And He made it plain
that the working out of this new birth would not be possible without
the sternest self-denial. For this very reason our Lord’s religion
has found fewer _genuine_ adherents than Mohammedanism, but by means
of those who have been genuine adherents it has effected a profound
spiritual renewal even in society as a whole.
No doubt the Church has often seemed to forget her Lord’s method.
There have been times――as at the baptism of the Franks――when the Church
incorporated men in masses, allowing the Christian standard to be
lowered almost indefinitely, in order that a whole race might be called
Christian. So, again, there was a time when Jesuit casuists said (in
effect), if only we can keep people Catholic, making their confessions
and receiving absolution, it shall be done at any cost of accommodation
to existing morals. Once more, the Church of England, in order to
maintain the ideal of “a national Church,” has in result allowed almost
all the power of spiritual discipline, which she should have kept in
her own hand, to be surrendered to a Parliament which is in the loosest
possible relation to Christianity of any kind.
In each of these cases the Church abandoned the method of Christ: she
sacrificed reality to numbers, or genuine discipleship to supposed
political influence, and as a result in each case the salt lost its
savour.
The question remains for us “Wherewith can it be salted?” Is the savour
of true Christianity among us so far gone as to be irrecoverable? We
thankfully answer No. But if we are to make good our denial, we must
set to work to let men understand that, as the Church has a creed which
she cannot let go, and a ministry and sacraments which are committed to
her to exercise and to dispense, so she has a moral standard, which, if
she is not to fall under the curse of barrenness, she must re-erect and
be true to. Only when men have come to understand what the Christian
moral standard is――in marriage and in the home, in commerce and in
politics――and to understand that it can no more be dispensed with than
the creed or the sacraments, is there any prospect of a healthy revival
of church life.