363 
Christianity has produced, and have asked whether any other 
influence could be potent for well-doing as this. I might have 
pointed out the effect of our religion in the conversion of the 
worst and most abandoned, its power to rescue them from the 
lowest depths of evil to the utmost height of purity and self- 
control. I might have laid great stress upon Mr. Lecky’s 
admission that Christianity has suffered from the fact that the 
sphere in which its superiority over other religions is most incon- 
testable is precisely that which history is least capable of 
realizing. * I do not wish to underestimate the importance of 
this point. I believe that the influence of the Christian Church 
as a whole is due to the influence of the Spirit of Christ upon 
every individual member of it. Yet we may recollect that the 
Apostles would seem to teach us that even the spiritual life of 
the individual is to be cultivated for the general good. They 
teach us, moreover, that this life of the individual is no special 
gift, to be enjoyed and cherished by himself apart, but it is a 
common life— common to him and “to his brethren, the life of 
the Son of God. 
15. It has been the object of this paper to indicate — the limits 
to which I am confined forbid me to do more than indicate— the 
nature of the progress the world has made under the auspices 
of Christianity ; I say under the auspices of Christianity, for no 
one can deny that since the Christian religion has been preached 
there has been an extraordinary change in the condition of 
mankind. Nor can it be denied that the condition of Christian 
countries at the present time is immeasurably superior to that 
of heathen countries. I contend that it is to Christianity that 
the difference is owing, and that, because the religion of Christ 
introduced a mighty transforming power into the world, capable 
of moulding men’s lives into conformity with the type which 
Christ Himself exhibited when He dwelt upon earth. Christi- 
anity is not merely a system of doctrines, it is not merely a 
code of morals of the purest and loftiest kind; it is a power. 
spirit has been introduced into the world, convincing men 
ol sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. A kingdom of 
rig teousness has been set up in the world, and men are daily 
ecoming more fully able to direct themselves by its laws, 
lose who reject Christianity may misrepresent the effects 
which the Christian religion has brought about. Mr. Greg may 
ask, as he has done lately in the pages of the Contemporary 
'* Hist, of Christian Morals, vol. ii. p. 156 . 
