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mankind its object. But at present Positivism has promised 
much, and performed little. It is not likely as yet to drive 
Christianity from the field. Por, first, its motives to action 
must be feeble, since they are derived from a world which, as 
far as we are concerned, soon ceases to be ; next, it depends 
upon conceptions external to the man himself, not upon an 
influence within him to impel him to self-sacrifice and love ; 
and lastly, while Positivists have been talking, Christians have 
been acting. Positivism, so far, has been content with creating 
an ideal; Christianity has translated that ideal into fact. In 
every city, in every parish, have Christian hearts been devising 
and Christian hands executing the numberless schemes for the 
benefit of their fellows which now exist among us. Sceptics 
and infidels may, and do, join in the good works that are being 
carried out. But can they tell us how much or how little of 
the principles of beneficence they avow is due to the religion 
which they affect to despise ? They find a ready audience for 
their schemes of political and social improvement. Will they 
explain to us from what source that readiness is derived ? They 
appeal to the maxims of benevolence and justice among their 
hearers. Where did their hearers learn those maxims, and 
under what sanctions have they come to be recommended to 
them with a force confessedly unknown except where Christianity 
is received and believed ? Even of the sceptic himself we may 
well believe that his heart is better than his head, and that the 
heart often responds to the teaching of the Master Whom the 
head fancies itself called upon to reject. It was a significant 
confession which fell from the lips of the well-known unbeliever 
lately dead, in his latest work, that a man who made it a rule 
to think, say, and do what he believed Jesus Christ would have 
thought, said, and done in his place would have realized the 
true ideal of human perfection.* We may depend upon it 
that John Stuart Mill was near the truth. Consciously or 
unconsciously, the standard of perfection not only theoretically 
taught, but practically exemplified, in the life and death of 
Jesus Christ is the real source of every good thought, word, or 
deed to which men are inspired. 
14. In what I have said I have been looking rather at the cor- 
porate than at the individual life of Christianity. I might have 
taken altogether a different view. I might have enlarged upon 
the immense influence of Christianity upon the individual. I 
might have referred to the grand array of saints which 
* Mill, Three fixsayn, p. 255. 
