EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



upon transient states of society and transient 

 phases of opinion. The permanent element in 

 Christianity the feature whereby it may still 

 claim the allegiance of modern thinkers who re- 

 ject the supernatural theology and the symbolic 

 ritual is the fact of its placing the conditions 

 of salvation, not in doctrine or in ceremonial, 

 but in right conduct as flowing from the impulse 

 toward a higher life in which religion most es- 

 sentially consists. Not they that say unto me, 

 " Lord, Lord," but they that do the will of our 

 Father in heaven, such was the first authorita- 

 tive definition of the aspect of human life with 

 which Christianity primarily concerns itself. 



Thus, Christianity in its earliest form may be 

 regarded as a kind of Protestantism, in which old 

 heathen ideas of conformity to tribal require- 

 ments as to doctrine and ritual were utterly dis- 

 carded, and in which religion was presented as 

 something which concerns the individual alone in 

 the presence of the infinite God. But so lofty a 

 conception as this could not be realized so long as 

 Christianity had to make its way as a militant 

 force among peoples who were still largely un- 

 der the influence of primeval ideas of corporate 

 responsibility for opinion. Already, in their 

 struggle with the pagan society of the Empire, 

 the preachers of the new ideas found it necessary 

 to become organized as a " church militant," and 

 to have certain recognized dogmas, or to use 

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