II. Christianity imparts to Civilization and makes effective. in it the Spiritual Forces necessary to its Purity, Completeness, and Perpetuity.

Comte and Buckle teach that human progress arises wholly from material conditions and intellectual development. This is not true, even if human progress is used as meaning only the progress of civilization, which is but a part of human progress. For prudence itself, or acting with reference to ends, which is the essential characteristic of civilization, belongs to the sphere of moral action. There is, however, some truth in the position, so far as mere civilization is concerned, if civilization is regarded as consisting merely in the development of power and of intellectual keenness and strength; for this development is possible under the direction of selfishness, as really as under the direction of love.

But civilization does not of itself constitute man's highest welfare. Developed under the impulse and guidance of selfishness, it contains the leaven of its own fermentation and corruption. As the development of power, it establishes the dominion of force, and civilization carries with it wars of conquest, tyranny, caste, and slavery. If, as it was in Greece, it is more distinctively the development of intellect, culminating in literary and aesthetic culture, still it carries in it the same principle of the right of the strongest, and presently decays into luxury and effeminacy; as the refinement of Greece degenerated into Corinthian debauchery. Or, if the civilization turns to industrial enterprise, wealth accumulates with the few, and the many are in hopeless poverty. Or, if such a civilization, partially Christianized, begins to open a career for all, the greed of gain takes possession of the community; worldliness creeps like a glacier over society; meanness, venality, and rapacity characterize the people; and "wealth accumulates, and men decay."

To secure man's highest well-being in a healthy and permanent civilization, something more is needed than the increase of power and intelligence. There must be also

moral and spiritual quickening and development. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Otherwise civilization is materialistic in its tendencies, and brings to man only what is possible to him as the highest of the brutes, nothing of what is possible to him as the child of God. In every

Natural religion never supplies this defect. condition of society will be found religions, all of them capsules containing some seeds of truth. But natural religion has not been able to supply the defect in civilization, and its force has usually been weakened by civilization. The ethnic religions have usually their greatest purity and power in the earlier periods of the national life. The earlier Romans were religious, and their religiousness was an important influence in the growth of the republic. The religiousness decayed as the national greatness advanced.

Christianity introduces into existing civilization, and in it makes effective and permanent, the moral and spiritual influences which lift man from the earthly, the sensual, and the devilish, and quicken him to act in reference to the moral and spiritual realities and possibilities of his being.

Human nature realizes its perfection only through Christianity. Though Christianity is supernatural, it is not foreign to humanity, and does not aim to superadd to humanity any accretion foreign or contrary to it. It is just that divine action which is necessary to bring man out from an abnormal condition, and to effect the complete development and perfection of humanity. Man in his normal condition, if he had never fallen, would realize his perfection only by faith in God and in communion with him. Dependence and faith are inseparable from man's condition as a created being, and their necessity is not a result merely of his abnormal condition as a sinner. The union with God by the indwelling Spirit belongs to man's normal condition. Man was made to be a worker with God, and to act under divine influences. Redemption restores him, through Christ and the Holy Spirit, to this normal union with God, so that

the divine life unfolds its character in him, as the life of the vine unfolds its character in the branches and their fruit. The real freedom of man is the freedom wherewith Christ maketh free. Christianity, therefore, is necessary to the development and perfection of humanity, and the establishment of Christ's kingdom is essential to the development and perfection of human society.

Therefore, in every unchristianized condition, humanity must show its consciousness of incompleteness, and a yearning and striving, or at least a groping and fumbling, after the divine life and redemption which Christ alone brings. This is so marked in history as to give speciousness to the doctrine that Christianity is merely the more complete development of natural religion.

Christianity, therefore, is not only a power of spiritual regeneration to the individual, but, because it is so, is also the power which restores human nature to its completeness and society to its best condition. The transformation of human society into the kingdom of God creates the highest and best civilization.

This influence of Christianity in civilization makes it possible to realize a civilization which shall be permanent. Unchristian civilizations have either perished by their own corruption, or, as the Chinese, have become stationary, capable only, like Swift's Struldbrugs, of mumbling from generation to generation the ideas of a remote past. It is often said, as if it were an indisputable maxim, that states must have their youth, manhood, old age, and dissolution. Says a brilliant writer: "Each civilization rests on an idea or group of ideas. But these ideas are forms of thought, and thought by its own nature is constant change. Universal principles develop themselves to fresh and special results, and facts familiar or strange give rise to new general principles. Thus ideas change no less than outward relations; and a civilization which has grouped itself about an idea is but the shell of a germinant seed. The seed will germinate, and the shell must be broken and destroyed. The task of the his

torian, often a sad one, is to show how in each civilization lies the sentence of its own death." 1

If, indeed, there are no unchanging principles, laws, and ideals, if principles themselves are but forms, changing with the changing exigencies of thought, then principles are as transitory as their outward manifestations; and a civilization which shall be permanent is in the nature of things impossible. But there are principles of truth, laws of character and action, and ideals of perfection which are unchanging and eternal. If these can be realized in civilization, there is no reason in the nature of things why the civilization should not be lasting.

Civilization in itself does not contain the elements necessary to perpetuity. If no supernatural influence comes down on humanity, we may expect that what has been will be, and that the principles of truth, justice, and love will never find complete expression in any civilization. But just this supernatural and redemptive agency comes into humanity through Christ. Christianity, therefore, has the word of promise inherent in it; it is no longer to be admitted that what always has been will be, but always the promise: "I will show you greater things." Christ makes effective in civilization the principles of truth, the law of love, the ideals of perfection which are unchanging and eternal. He consecrates all growth of physical and intellectual power, all discoveries and inventions, all philosophy and statesmanship, all poetry, painting, sculpture, and music, all thinking and acting, to God in the service of man for the realization of truth, love, and beauty in human life. Such a civilization has in it the elements of perpetuity. Such a state is not destined to decrepitude and death. There will still be new discoveries and inventions; the modes and fashions of life, customs, laws, and institutions may change; yet they are all but the exuberant outgrowth of the same life; the essential character and power of the civilization will abide unchanged. It is sometimes objected that if Jesus were at once so 1 Prof. C. C. Everett, Science of Thought, p. 44.

good and so great as Christianity represents, he would have revealed modern discoveries and inventions, and thus have spared mankind the dreariness of the dark ages, and given at once to the world the blessings of modern civilization. But by the very act of doing so he would have taught that these are the essentials to the redemption of the world and the highest well-being of man that the Son of God came into the world to give to man "all the modern conveniences." Thus he would have intensified worldliness, and sanctioned a materialistic civilization. On the contrary, Christ asserted the pre-eminence of the spiritual, and brought into humanity that divine grace which in every civilization rouses man to the spiritual realities, relations, and possibilities of his being, and makes effectual those spiritual principles, laws, and ideals without which the most advanced civilization is selfish and self-destroying.

III. Christianity, by the Spiritual Forces which it introduces and makes effective, gradually creates a Christian Civilization.

It has been said that genius does not establish a school, but kindles an influence. The method of Christianity in Christianizing civilization is the same. It kindles an influence which creates the new beneath the old, and so pushes the old off. Its method is not the mechanical change of organization, but the inward process of life. Christ and the apostles made no direct assault on the existing forms of government, nor on slavery. But they taught principles, and required of individuals a life of faith and love, which, as they prevailed in society, would necessarily overthrow those institutions. By this leavening action, by this development of life, Christianity gradually removed the ancient Roman slavery; afterwards removed the mediaeval or feudal serfdom; and now is causing negro slavery to pass away.

IV. The Progress of Christ's Kingdom in Successive Ages will be modified by the Existing Civilization.

The truths of Christianity and the redeeming grace of