TJ In the middle of the last century all literary and philo- sophical people in this country were writing down the Church, saying its last days were come: when bishops like Butler were apologizing for Christianity, and historians like David Hume were predicting that by the end of the century it would be among the dead religions ; it was just at that time that the great Evangelical revival of Wesley and Whitefield commenced, which carried a new wave, or rather a new fire, of religious fervour into every corner of the land. Again, towards the close of the century, when the French Encyclopaedists, led by Voltaire, were saying that Jesus the Nazarene had at last been blotted out, and that Christian temples would be changed into halls of science — it was at that time that William Carey went out to India, and the great foreign missionary enterprise was renewed, if not commenced, which has carried the sign of the cross, and the light of it, into the darkest parts of the world. And the Church has always been surprising its enemies in that way by its wonderful resurrections, just as Jewish rulers were surprised when they found that the name of Jesus which they had crucified, and buried, and got rid of, was working greater miracles than ever.1
TJ We understand ourselves to be risking no new assertion, but simply reporting what is already the conviction of the greatest of our age, when we say, — that cheerfully recognizing, gratefully appropriating whatever Voltaire has proved, or any other man has proved, or shall prove, the Christian Keligion, once here, cannot again pass away ; that in one or the other form, it will endure through all time ; that as in Scripture, so also in the heart of man, is written, " the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." Were the memory of this Faith never so obscured, as, indeed, in all times, the coarse passions and perceptions of the world do all but obliterate it in the hearts of most: yet in every pure soul, in every Poet and Wise Man, it finds a new Missionary, a new Martyr, till the great volume of Universal History is finally closed, and man's destinies are fulfilled in this earth.2
1 J. G. Greenhough, The Cross in Modern Life, lit).
2 Cailyle, Miscellanies, ii. 173 (Essay oil Voltaire).
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3. The greatest hindrance to the victory of this society of Christ, and the supreme sorrow of all loyal hearts within it, has been the low standard of its Christian character, and the apostasy of those traitor hearts who have sometimes found a place among its leaders. The root of this low level of life, and the source of this treachery, has always been the failure to maintain the test of a personal experience. Wherever Christian teachers sanction membership on the ground of a proper age, a sufficient knowledge, a Christian training, or a due regard for religious observances, unworthy lives and heedless practices abound. So long as the winnowing fan of persecution blew away the chaff there was little but wheat in the garner of God and the society of Christ. When the cleansing fires of a searching poverty, a costly service, and an open outcastness, purged believers' hearts of pride and ambition, Christ's society was the ideal of a godly chivalry. But when the Church grew rich and powerful, and when title and rank became appanages of its leaders, and office in it became a coveted dis- tinction, then this solemn test of a personal touch with God was evaded. Christ's society was no longer a community and brother- hood of pure and lowly men. Whatever rank, or place, or authority any man has held in any church in Christendom, it is a simple certainty that Christ has not welcomed him in at all, if he has had no revelation from God.
T{ Thoreau spoke of men whose pretence to be Christian was ridiculous, for they had no genius for it. Matthew Arnold said of John Wesley that he had " a genius for godliness." But nothing can be more misleading than to use such terms as these. They are a distinct denial of Christ's great truth that God's revelation of grace is made not to the wise and prudent, but to babes. There have been men of a real genius for morality, but there is no such thing as a genius for religion. The most reckless and godless wretch, whose name has been a synonym for coarse and blatant atheism, about whom Thoreau and Matthew Arnold would say that he had a genius for devilry, has become a splendid and glorious saint. Wherever there is a soul there is a genius for godliness. But that soul must have come nakedly and openly under the power of God. Then and not till then does it pass into Christ's society.1
TJ If Augustin guessed from this upheaval of his whole frame 1 W. M. Clow, The Secrot of the Lord, 49.
ST. MATTHEW xvi. 18 299
how close at hand was the heavenly visitation, all he felt at the moment was a great need to weep, and he wanted solitude to weep freely. He went down into the garden. Alypius, feeling uneasy, followed at a distance, and in silence sat down beside him on the bench where he had paused. Augustin did not even notice that his friend was there. His agony of spirit began again. All his faults, all his old stains came once more to his mind, and he grew furious against his cowardly feebleness as he felt how much he still clung to them. Oh, to tear himself free from all these miseries — to finish with them once for all! . . . Suddenly he sprang up. It was as if a gust of the tempest had struck him. He rushed to the end of the garden, flung himself on his knees under a fig-tree, and with his forehead pressed against the earth he burst into tears. Even as the olive-tree at Jerusalem which sheltered the last watch of the Divine Master, the fig-tree of Milan saw fall upon its roots a sweat of blood. Augustin, breathless in the victorious embrace of Grace, panted : " How long, how long ? To-morrow and to-morrow ? Why not now ? Why not this hour make an end of my vileness ? "