But Socialism only makes a pretence of being workable through the State, by ignoring the bear- ing which its action would have on the whole life of the indi\-idual, and it is with this larger ques- tion that our Lord is concerned. His Kingdom is not of this world, and its treasures are not upon earth, and it only concerns itself vdth the things upon earth as tliey have to do ^Wtli the great treasure in heaven, which is character, and the great rule of the Kingdom, which is love. That He expected this idea to be embodied in an earthly society is plain, for the beginnings of it arose in His own lifetime. But it was to be a very singular society, in whicli none was to exercise authority on one hand, and none to call any man master on the other. The only dignity was to be seri'ice ; and the higher the position, the lowlier one should serve. Nothing can reconcile this with the ecclesi- astical embodiment of it in all ages, wherein the true succession has been placed in the officials, who determined not only action but belief, and who have penetrated further into the inner sanctuarj- of the indiA-idual life than any earthly government that ever existed. But no one recognized more fully than Christ Himself that the channels by which His influence would go do«-n would inter- mingle their clay ^rttli the pure waters ; and to a.ssunie that any organization is more than a dim human attempt at reaching out towards His ideal, is to neglect His ovm warnings. As the believer must be in the world, so he must be in the insti- tution— in it but not of it, always retaining his right to consider whether Christ is there or not when men say, 'Lo, here, or Lo, there.' In so far as the institution serves this Kingdom of God, this kingdom of souls, whose only authority is God the Father as revealed in the Son, and whose only rule is love, it is to be honoured ; but it must ever be prepared to be judged by that standard.
Tlie great end of all progress, therefore, is not to subject the indiAndufu, but to call him to the realization of his own heritage of freedom. It )> in the crowd that men have done all the great
INDIVmUALITY
INDIVIDUALITY
iniquities. The multitude come to take Christ ; the disciples all in a body forsake Him ; the rulers come together to judge Him ; the whole band of soldiers is called together to buffet Him ; the crowd cry, ' Crucify Him ' ; the chief priests mock Him among themselves. Even those that were crucified wth Him stilled their pain by falling in with the cry of the multitude. Whatever institution, therefore, we may submit to, we can only belong to the true Church by lirst of all having ' salt in ourselves' (Mk 9*°), t)y being of the truth and hearing Christ's voice ( jn 18^).
It is argued that the full meaning and claim of Christianity can never be explicable on the basis of Individualism, because 'from first to last it deals with minds which are in relation with actual truth in regard to the soul, tlie world, and God, and which have not fully attained even the limits of their OAvn nature till they are united in the Spirit-bearing Body, through Christ to the Father ' (Strong). Possibly Hume contends for the Indivi- dualism here refuted. Nobody else does. Why Christianity is so individualistic is precisely that the soul is so directly, or, at all events, can, through God's revelation and grace, be so directly in con- tact with actual truth, the world and God, as to make it only a distraction for another man, on merely official grounds, to come in between as a necessary channel ; that the possession of such a personal relation to trutli is a common bond of more power than any external tie ; and that the visible organization is only vital and useful as it expresses this union. The usual way is to say the Kingdom of God is a purely spiritual condition on the one hand, and has a place and effect in the world on the other ; to seek no common basis ; to avoid deriving one from the other ; to ascribe methods of worldly rule to the visible society, and then to transfer to it the attributes of love and truth and holiness that belong to the invisible, and so to claim for it, in subjection, the obedience which belongs to the other, in freedom. It is quite true that a person in a state of salvation is one called and admitted into a socioty ; Imt, jn<<t ho cause it is a society of .saved persmi^, ii i- iliU'i'uni in its relation to its members limn .ill \isil,li' societies. Instead of more subirii--i<))i in tlicii teachers and more obedience to their rulers, tlie Scripture hope of progress is still wliat it was of old, 'Would that the Lord's people were all prophets,' — would that each man were less con- cerned about his neighbour and more about his own message and his own call ! Men are always ready to organize others ; the fruitful and difficult task is to organize one's own soul.