Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/390

378 in the ear. For Jesus was no believer in a dualism either in heaven or on earth, and this regenerate society in the world is slowly to spread until like yeast in the dough, it transforms its entire environment. To use the noble words of an early Christian writer, "What the soul is in the body that are Christians in the world."

The method and the means by which the world is thus to be transformed into the kingdom do not concern us here. It is enough to point out the fact that the kingdom is thought of by Jesus as present as well as future, and that its history is an evolution. Each stage of the growth will be to a considerable degree determined by the character of the men—or groups of men—with whom the new order has to deal. Naturally the rates of progress will vary at different developing points. The influence of the old social environment will always be felt, and its elements will yield themselves with unequal readiness to the new ideal. But the process nevertheless will go on. According to Jesus it will be remembered, men from their very constitution, if only that constitution be allowed its normal operations, will unite in some social bond. To make this social bond religious and social relationships moral is to bring in the new order of things.

5. Historically speaking the stages thus involved are (1) the appearance of Jesus, (2) the formation of the first group of men whom Jesus gathered as the nucleus of future greatness, (3) the gradual development of other similar groups of men throughout the world, (4) the gradual leavening of all social environment, (5) the consummation of this process in the new age.

6. What then is this consummation, this end of the age? Certainly not death. Jesus seldom considers the death of the individual. The transition between "this age" and "the coming" is between eras and societies. The glorious kingdom is to come after the period of growth and conflict is past. The