The Theological Method. 261 



New Testament, was witMn very narrow limits. Christian 

 civilization has never been a trial of the New Testament 

 Social Ideals, except here and there in isolated and sporadic 

 ways. The Quakers have tried non-resistance, and the 

 moral of their experience is that pictorially furnished by 

 the affair in Scranton, when the Hicksites and the Ortho- 

 dox contended for the possession of a meeting-house. Not 

 a blow was struck, but there was a great deal of pushing, 

 till, finally, the Orthodox I must believe they were the 

 more numerous party pushed every living Hicksite out 

 of doors. Moral in any society where there is no 

 striking, there Avill be a good deal of pushing. Monastic 

 celibacy has made a very extensive and protracted trial of 

 the " counsels of perfection " Jesus gave in his teaching 

 upon marriage, and which Paul distinctly reinforced. With 

 neither of them was marriage an ideal condition. It was 

 a concession to ungovernable lust. Monastic celibacy can 

 hardly be regarded as a success. There went along with it 

 a great deal of industrial help. But it was essentially 

 illogical, depending on the disobedient for the materials 

 of its obedience. It said, "Marriage peoples earth, but 

 virginity peoples heaven." But so long as marriage or 

 illicit unions must furnish the raw material of virginity, 

 and the former were accursed, marriage was a fortunate ex- 

 pedient of the average man. We have the opinion of 

 Galton that monastic celibacy drained off tlie finest brains 

 in Europe from the natural current of its intellectual devel- 

 opment, so that the average brain at the conclusion of the 

 Middle Ages was of less capacity than in Anoient Greece. 

 Moreover, even if the monks and nuns had kept their 

 foolish and unnatural vows it would have been at the ex- 

 pense of a pruriency of persistent thought more intolerable, 

 says Renan, than the vices of the world. 



But what is the relation of the Bible, and especially of 

 the NcAv Testament and nascent Christianity, to that Social 

 problem Avhich is ^^a?* excellence the Social problem of the 

 present time the problem of Poverty and AVealth ? To 

 what extent has the New Testament industrial Christianity 

 been tried, and to what extent has it succeeded, if it has 

 not altogether failed ? 



Judaism has never been so painfully at odds with its 

 avowed ideals as Christianity. In seeking wealth the Jew 

 has always had the warrant of his Bible, clear and strong. 



