: that moves on its
INDIVIDUALISM
INDH^IDUALISM
surface and the water that comes down its hills, and we should then be enabled to accept many of Christ's commands as literal which we can only now live with as figfnres of speech.
One feels in reading the Gospels that -nhat is more alien to them than either Individualism or Socialism, is the current amalgam of both, -whicli defends all the Indi\-idualism that means per- sonal profit and all the Socialism that means personal security and dignity, which finds all our Lord's concessions literal and all His demands figurative. The typical attitude, though not usually expressed so bluntly, is Loisy's. Christ, he says, conceived the Kingdom of God, which He thought was at hand, as the great social panacea. Though He enforced it with the enthusiasm and excess which are necessary to implant any great ideal, it was quite im workable in this rough Avorld. There rose up in place of it, therefore, the Church with its authorities for belief and for con- duct, that useful, practical, enduring compromise between the individual and tlie religious society. It is this combination wliich mo=-t of our country- men who love compromise as tlie oU, if not the water, of life, are concerned to maintain ; and when they welcome the passin" of IndiWdualism, they mean to hail the revival of the power of the Wsible authorities ; and when they object to Socialism, they only mean that they do not approve of the purposes for which the power is to be used.
The method of Socialism, nevertheless, is not the method of the gospel, and the usual course of the Socialist is that which Mr. Headlam follows, — to prove that the aims of Socialism are Christ's, and then take for granted that He would approve of the means proposed for attaining them. Even supposing we make the large concession of grant- ing the exegesis, we still do not find the slightest attempt to show that our Lord ever in any way trusted to the State as the instrument for accom- plishing His design. The usual way of avoiding this difficulty is to say that He could not be ex- pected to look to a Pagan State as we are justified in looking to the Christian State. To this there are two very evident replies. First, Is the State ever Christian in our Lord's sense ? Second, It was not the Pagan but the Tlieocratic State our Lord dealt ivith nearly all His days. It was there waiting to be adopted ; yet He lived chiefly in conflict with it, and He never attempted to reform it or work through it. He certainly expected His followers to have a good deal to do vrith States and kings and governors, but it would be in an ex- tremely indi^Tidualistic position (Mt 10'*), and all that was expected of them was not to fear them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul (v.=*). Our Lord's action was not revolutionary in the sense of actually overtlirowing existing insti- tutions, but He cannot be said to have clierished them. A certain regard was to be paid to the Scribes and Pharisees who sat in Moses' seat (Mt 23-), but He also subjected them to sucli criticism as must have sapped their power. He Himself so far honoured tlie religious institutions as not to oppose them ; but the only evil He ever put His hand to the task of reforming, was that which disturbed the private worshipper (Mt 21'-"'*, Jn 2"""), and His entire indifference to ceremonial purity rejected a great deal of the institution to the advantage of the indiWdual. . All tliis might seem to refer rather to the Church than the State ; but if He distrusted the leadership of the former. He would not be likely any more to trust the leadership of the latter, if it took over the guid- ance of life. It also would be the blind leading tlie blind. What our Lord manifestly expects to see, is what He calls the seed of the Kingdom (Mt 13^), tliose who in every place are worthy, who are jire- 1 lights shining in a dark place. Why
pared to be as ]
should He speak of the result as a Kingdom of God at all, if, in the final issue, it is only of man's regu- lation ? Tlie meaning certainly lies very near, that it was a kingdom of souls regulated only by love, a kingdom of souls bent on a direct serWce and obedience to God, and requiring no other rule. This fundamental distinction between it and all other earthly kingdoms would seem to be the very reason for calling it of God.
This view is confirmed by what seems the most coniTncing explanation of our Lord's temptations. To suppose that He was tempted merely by His ovra hunger and love of success and love of praise, is to ascribe to Him motives which had no poAver over Him at other times. But if they are tempta- tions of His work, the temptation to provide a kingdom with fulness of bread and to rule by accepting the methods of force in the State an'd of display in the Church, we see how He could be touched in His deepest interests. When He turned from that way to the road that led by a solitary path to Calvary, to call many, but to choose only the few who also would be prepared to walk in it. He surely decided to look to the individual to save the institution, and not to the institution to save the indi-v-idual. In view of all this, it cannot be questioned that the aristocrat in his peasant's dress, digging his bread out of the earth, and liA-ing as if the social revolution had come, in the high con- viction that the Divine way is personal surrender and not social super\T.sion, represents Christ's attitude better than the respectable persons who meantime take all the present system of competi- tion will give, while they wait for salvation from the action of the State.