of the family life ought not to be sullied by the perpetuation of the monstrous pagan doctrine of the superior holiness of the unmarried state. Of the evils and disasters wrought by the enforced celibacy of the clergy there is no need to speak. Strange light is thrown upon the ecclesiastical frame of mind by that comic and deplorable passage in the Life of Manning concerning his wife's death, a passage which even his biographer found it expedient to omit from the second edition of that work. The warped Tractarian view of marriage is often defended as presenting a high ideal; but the good is here the enemy of the best, and it obscures the higher ideal by its arbitrariness. A true virtue is not circumscribed by the ecclesiastical definition of it. The wretched laxity of fashionable society, with its double standard of morals is a painful commentary on the failure of the Church in this regard.

To resume the more direct theme of this chapter -the service of man. We have commented in another place on the striking pronouncement of Christ in the parable, or narrative, of the Great Assize, when the Arbiter of the destinies of men divided them, as a shepherd dividing the sheep from the goats. What was the criterion which He set up in that solemn adjudication, as between those who were blessed by admission to the inheritance of the kingdom, and those who were doomed to annihilation in the perpetual fires? Nothing that they had expected, nothing of the slightest ecclesiastical or dogmatic import, nothing that the theologians have laid down, or that the Churches have. erected into a creed. Nothing but that human

brotherliness which is the fulfilling of the law of Christ. Put into other words, the judgment in the Great Assize turned solely upon fulfilment of the service of man. In that service He had given many quite explicit declarations of positive duty. Had they been obeyed? Feed the hungry; clothe the ragged; raise the fallen; heal the sick; cure the blind; lead the young; teach the ignorant ; cast out devils; rejoice with the joyful; weep with the sorrowful; cheer the broken-hearted; care for the aliens; open the prison doors to those that are bound; freely ye received, freely give. And the sentence on those who had failed in these elementary duties of human brotherliness was this: Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, My brethren, ye did it not to Me. Depart from Me, ye cursed.

Has the race progressed? Have men, in spite of the false teachers who have preached another gospel, been really learning to fulfil the law of Christ? Is the human race really making progress towards the pattern of the Christ? Is there to be (in this sense) a race of super-men? Of men lifted up? Is there to be-in all reverence be it spoken -a race of Christs? Can the race follow where the individual has shown the way? Or has Christ died in vain ?

To such questions there can be, now or here, no answer. But any one who will reflect will discern the inevitable conclusion from the teaching of Christ, that there is, in the whole range of human interest, nothing that tends to the lifting up of man that is not inherently a component part of the Kingdom of Heaven.

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Well may we say with the great pagan satirist and censor, but in a far higher and nobler sense : Homo sum. Nihil humanum a me alienum puto. am a man, and there is nothing that is of importance in the elevation of the race that is not of supremest importance to me.

CHAPTER XVI

Christ's own Creed

"My Father is greater than I.” "My Father is greater than all." (Creed of Christ.)

"And in this Trinity none is afore or after other: none is greater or less than another." (Creed of Saint Athanasius.)

ET it be accepted that the three Synoptists

LET

set down in all sincerity what they remembered or believed to be truly reported of the actual words and teaching of Jesus Christ. Let it be further accepted that the writer of the fourth Gospel, though he wrote at a greater distance of time from the event, and though his thought was tinged by the philosophies of the Alexandrian school, in equal sincerity set down what he believed to be a true report of the teachings of Christ. Then, within these limits, it is possible with care and patience to glean from the fragments preserved to us in these four Gospels many precious grains which have survived the spoliation of after ages. Amongst these garnered possessions none are of more importance to us than those which relate to the beliefs held and professed by the Master Himself. In short, it is possible, within these limits, and apart from all the aberrations of later theological schools, to recover Jesus Christ's own creed.

For all who reverence the name of Jesus Christ, and who strive to follow Him, it must be a matter of supreme importance to ascertain exactly, or at least as exactly as the surviving data admit, what were the beliefs which He held as to God and heaven; as to sin, and death, and evil; as to the world to come and the life after death. To make a complete analysis on these points is probably beyond the powers of any one mind; certainly it is far beyond those of the present writer. But the strange thing is that no person seems even yet to have attempted the task. The fathers, the doctors, the theologians, the preachers, have written shoals of books, discourses, treatises, sermons on Jesus Christ and on the creeds of the Churches. But has one of them ever set himself seriously and singleheartedly to discover free from all preconceived theological notions--what were the things that Jesus Christ Himself believed? Take, for instance, any one of the more disputed points in the creeds of Christianity; say the doctrine of purgatory. About the doctrine of purgatory every theologian has had his say. He discusses it from the Catholic standpoint, or the Lutheran standpoint, or the Jewish standpoint. He cites the Fathers or the decisions of the Councils, and declares that the Church holds this or that view. But has he ever gone back to the fountain head to try to discover Jesus Christ's own view on the subject, free from all bias, as to whether the result of the enquiry might or might not support his own particular school of theological thought? Has ever theologian written without trying, consciously or unconsciously, to bolster up his own side of truth? The scientific

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