16 WILL CHRISTIANITY SURVIVE THE WAR? 



which will persist when the mythological vehicle has lost all 

 value. 



Let me here guard against- misapprehension. I do not 

 regard Christian morality as a totally new and astounding 

 thing discovered (so to speak) by Jesus of Nazareth. Pre- 

 tensions of this kind have been put forward as an argument 

 in favour of the supernatural character of Jesus. Conse- 

 quently, with the desire to show that the belief in that 

 supernatural character is a baseless superstition, a great 

 deal of pains has been taken to prove that the moral 

 precepts of Christianity did not originate with that religion, 

 but are to be found, scattered here and there, in the writings 

 of early Greek and oriental sages. I have no doubt that 

 this contention is correct. Nevertheless, it is also the fact 

 that it has been, and is, directly through the spread and 

 impulse of the Christian religion that this moral teaching 

 has been carried over the earth, and its highest and noblest 

 features have become incorporated in the moral creed of the 

 Western world. 



It is abundantly evident that, under the name of Chris- 

 tianity and the Christian Church, human weakness and 

 perversity have created repulsive systems of self-torture, of 

 tyranny, and injurious repression. Every kind of insanity 

 and imposture, the most sordid ambition and the vilest 

 cruelty and lust, have made use of this as of many other 

 " religions." But it is a mistake to regard the offences 

 of those who have thus abused the power of a religious 

 organization as an index to the character of the essential 

 teaching upon which the organization was founded. 



In spite of the ghastly inventions of monasticism, puri- 

 tanism, ecclesiastical supremacy, and the torture of heretics, 

 the moral doctrine of Christianity has, through all vicissitudes 

 by hidden,' as it were, subterranean growth survived and 

 developed, and become purified and wedded to the conscience 

 of modern man. Whatever we have to register of the 

 iniquities of the authorities of the Christian Church during 

 its growth from the position of an obscure sect to one of 

 world-wide power and domination, the fact remains that the 

 philanthropic precepts of charity and unselfishness, pity and 

 humility, which were distinctive of Christian teaching when 

 it first appeared, have been approved and, as it were, absorbed 

 by all civilized peoples, and form the central feature of that 

 " moral law " which is accepted by them. Christianity is the 

 actual "begetter" of modern moral law. It is, no doubt, 



