(3) So has been, and still is, the Kingdom of God among us — from that day, and in all the world — in this land, and at this hour. There are about us the visible structures which enshrine its presence, the outward tokens of God's service, and the loud schemings of men who, under the name of the Church, would serve themselves of the Church as a contrivance for civilizing mankind ; but they are not God's Kingdom. There is, under the badge of religion, a strife and struggle for mastery among men that bear the sacred name which the saints first bore at Antioch ; but God's Kingdom is not in their heady tumult : there are the visible hurryings to and fro of a worldly Jehu-like zeal for the Lord ; and there are the plottings of earthly Christians — for men may plot for Christ's Church as well as against it. The same earthly and faithless temper of mind which resists God's will may
ST. LUKE — 24
370 THE KINGDOM THAT IS WITHIN
also insinuate itself into His service. Men may think, and do think, to spread His Kingdom by the stir and noise of popular excitement; but God's Kingdom, like God Himself when He communed with His prophet on the mountain-height, is not in the boisterous and fleeting forms of earthly power. As its coming and its course, so is its character. It is not in any of these ; but verily it is in the midst of us ; in the still small voice of the holy Catholic faith ; in the voiceless teaching of Christ's holy sacra- ments, through which mysteries of the world unseen look out upon us ; in the faithful witness of the Apostles of Christ, who, through their ghostly lineage, live among us still.
(4) Now, in what has been said surely there is a great lesson for our guidance whenever we attempt to spread Christianity either at home or abroad. We cannot hope to extend it success- fully unless we proceed on the same method as was observed in planting it. It began by seizing strongly upon the soul of man, and passed on, after it had done its work there, by a natural expansion, not by a forcible imposition, into his outward life. But how many are there who are for inverting this order of things, who begin by assaulting the outward in order that they may carry the inward ! How many, for example, there are who enter upon a crusade against certain worldly amusements, the sinfulness of which in themselves is at least questionable, or who advocate severe restriction upon ordinary pursuits on the Christian Sabbath, as if such outward restraints could in themselves make men spiritually-minded, or secure the hallowing of the sacred day of rest. Let such persons alter their course of proceeding. Let them begin by attacking the sentiments and convictions of the human soul. A man in whose soul the earnestness created by the thought of death and judgment has found place can never be frivolous in his recreations ; questionable amusements, if they once had a hold upon him, will drop off when that new life circulates and stirs within him, as the snake casts its old slough in the spring. And a man who has really tasted the peace and pleasantness of communion with God wouid sooner deprive himself of natural repose than desecrate holy seasons. Plant, by God's grace, the faith and love of Christ in any man's soul, and you have then a perfect security for the innocence of his recreations and for the devout consecration of a just proportion of his time to God.
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^ Our life can have no other meaning than the fulfilment, at any moment, of what is wanted from us by the power that sent us into life and gave us in this life one sure guide — our rational consciousness. And so this power cannot want from us what is irrational and impossible — the establishment of our temporal, carnal life, the life of society or of the state. This power demands of us what alone is certain and rational and possible — our serving the Kingdom of God, that is, our co-operation in the establishment of the greatest union of everything living, which is possible only in the truth, and, therefore, the recognition of the truth revealed to us, and the profession of it, precisely what alone is always in our power. " Seek ye the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." The only meaning of man's life consists in serving the world by co-operating in the establishment of the Kingdom of God; but this service can be rendered only through the recognition of the truth, and the pro- fession of it, by every separate individual. " The kingdom of God Cometh not with observation : neither shall they say, Lo, here ! or, There ! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you." ^
^ Islam is growing to-day even faster in some lands than it did in the days of Lull. And yet in other lands, such as European Turkey, Caucasia, Syria, Palestine, and Turkestan, the number of Moslems is decreasing. In Lull's day the empire of Moslem faith and Moslem politics nearly coincided. Nowhere was there real liberty, and all the doors of access seemed barred. Now five-sixths of the Moslem world are accessible to foreigners and missionaries ; but not one sixtieth has ever been occupied by missions. More than 125,000,000 Moslems are now under Christian rulers. The keys to every gateway in the Moslem world are to-day in the political grasp of Christian Powers, with the exception of Mecca and Constantinople. Think only, for example, of Gibraltar, Algiers, Cairo, Tunis, Khartum, Batoum, Aden, and Muskat, not to speak of India and the farther East. It is impossible to enforce the laws relating to renegades from Islam under the flag of the " infidel." How much more promising too is the condition of Islam to-day ! The philo- sophical disintegration of the system began very early, but has grown more rapidly in the past century than in all the twelve that preceded. The strength of Islam" is to sit still, to forbid thought, to gag reformers, to abominate progress. But the Wahabis "drew a bow at a venture" and smote their king " between the joints of the harness." Their exposure of the un* orthodoxy of Turkish Mohammedanism set all the world thinking. 1 Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You ( Works, xx. 379).