58 Natural Salvation. 



ideals of patriotism, forgetting that all men are brothers ; 

 insensate ambitions to build up one nation in wealth and 

 political power at the expense of the rest of the world, 

 reckless of the refluent wave that will sweep it away in 

 blood and loss. 



The priests and preachers of Christianity have made 

 but a feeble progress in convincing the world of the truth 

 and utility of this great doctrine of Jesus, because they 

 have not comprehended it themselves. They have under- 

 stood neither its scope nor significance. The great doc- 

 trine of brotherly love and human equality has been 

 preached rather as a sentimental tenet, a species of Sab- 

 bath-day duty, a symbol of allegiance to the church, a 

 kind of holy discipline for the soul, to prepare it for " an- 

 other world." They have missed, lost and sacrificed the 

 power of the golden rule as an agent for controlling and 

 elevating mankind, because they have made it a shibbo- 

 leth of church membership rather than a prime requisite 

 of human progress. The real significance of this doctrine 

 has yet to be made plain to human eyes ; its real strength 

 has yet to be manifested. Then, not till then, will the 

 human race accept it and act on it. This deeper-lying 

 truth of life has yet to be instilled in the mind of hu- 

 manity. Church Christianity has never evinced an un- 

 derstanding of it, perhaps never can have an adequate 

 comprehension of it, as long as the " kingdom of God " is 

 believed to be an immaterial realm of disembodied spirits 



