THE AMERICAN-SCANDIN AVIAN REVIEW 
347 
its human capacities. It is, of course, a generally recognized historic 
truth that a great personality can not he estimated in the full value of 
his influence before it is possible to take a retrospective view of what 
his followers in later ages have received through him. 
If we allow an unprejudiced view of human history to prevail, 
we shall see more and more clearly that, in the life of the nations, 
true Christianity and true progress have gone hand in hand. Look 
at the peoples who were once Christians and are Christians no longer! 
The light that once shone in Alexandria was extinguished when 
Christ was driven out; civilization was submerged in the waves of 
Islam. 
Let us turn our attention to art! Our hearts are lifted in worship 
when we stand under the lofty arches of a Gothic cathedral. Our 
souls are gripped by thoughts of eternity, while our eyes follow the 
mighty lines of architecture. It is the spirit of Christianity that has 
created this art. Some one has truthfully said that the builders of the 
Cologne and Strasburg cathedrals have “hewn the thoughts of Chris¬ 
tianity in stone.” Consider, too, the art of painting! When we admire 
Fra Angelico’s ecstasies in the frescoes of the convent of St. Mark, or 
see Raphael’s visions in the Transfiguration on the Mount, we can not 
but feel that to such heights only a Christian art can attain. It gives 
tangible form to the most exalted ideas. Or let us consider the art of 
the poet! Do not the words of Holy Writ about human sin and 
redemption, about the agonies of the condemned and the raptures of the 
blessed, vibrate as mighty chords through Shakespeare’s Macbeth and 
Dante’s Divine Comedy? 
The civilized states of our time owe Christianity their most pre¬ 
cious possessions: their love of freedom, their respect for the inner¬ 
most personality of a human being and for the sacredness of con¬ 
science, their conception of the great idea of human equality based 
on brotherhood and of the high demands of humanitarian principles. 
It is true, the humanitarian ideal is now accepted even by those who 
deny Christ, but we have no right to forget that it has sprung from 
the soil of the gospel, and I will venture to say that if it is torn loose 
from its original soil, it will die, as the palm dies when it is transplanted 
to the cold soil of the North. 
No one will deny that an ethical life is the foundation of true 
civilization. Who has taught humanity to feel the awful abysses of 
sin and at the same time to break the fetters of vice as Christ has 
done? In our time attempts have been made to formulate a code of 
ethics independently of the Christian faith, a morality without re¬ 
ligion. This morality can not create new life. It can not curb desires 
and passions; of that we have all too much evidence. Faith in Christ 
is that which gives strength to begin a life that is new and holy from 
the root up. Rousseau in his day said: “Philosophy can exhibit no 
