The Gospel 99 



tama, or those of Jesus, have fallen short of the world- 

 wide charity and love which those Teachers preached; 

 if they have been guilty of theological narrowness, 

 sectarian persecution, national prejudice, — these sins 

 must be laid to the shortcomings of self in its struggle 

 with the altruistic principle, or to a fault in the method 

 of attaining the ideal, or to a failure in providing an 

 adequate motive; not to any shortcomings in the ideal 

 itself. 



The Gospel 



What then is this gospel of Jesus of which we hear so 

 much and yet understand so little ? I reply, it is for 

 one thing, the highest, broadest ideal yet vouchsafed 

 to mankind of the evolutionary idea of survival of race 

 as opposed to survival of self, of the supreme need of 

 subordinating self-love to race-love, if we would have 

 our race attain perfection. Combined with this, it fur- 

 nishes a practical method of attaining that ideal, and an 

 adequate motive for putting the method into practise. 

 It contains within it the germ of fear which we have 

 seen in fetichism, but it is fear ennobled by trust. It 

 recognizes symbolism too, but symbolism purified of its 

 grossness. It has all the purity of Zoroastrianism, the 

 spirituality of Brahmanism, the reverence for parents 

 and worship of the general well-being and common- 

 sense of Confucianism, the regard for the sacredness of 

 life and death found in the religion of Egypt, the worship 

 of law, order, and justice found in that of Rome, the 

 adoration of beauty, strength, and wisdom of Greece, 



