Page:The kernel and the husk (Abbott, 1886).djvu/339

Letter 29] dominant among us that habit of mutual helpfulness—"comforting one another," as St. Paul calls it—which is the criterion of a truly Christian nation? Have not the laws in almost all cases, until the French Revolution, been made in the interests of the rich, rather than in the interests of the poor; and where the poor have been considered, has not the consideration arisen largely from the fear of violence and revolution? There has been a certain amount of alms-giving, or legacy-leaving, on the part of the minority who have laid themselves out to lead religious lives; and there has always been a still more select minority who have been imbued with a truly Christian enthusiasm for their fellow-creatures, a passionate desire to do something for Christ, and to leave the world a little better for their having lived: but the great unheeding mass of men in Christian countries has rolled on in its selfish path, less selfish certainly, less brutishly intent on present pleasure than the masses of heathendom, and indirectly humanized and leavened by a thousand Christian influences, but still not more than superficially Christian. The reason for this comparative failure has been, in part, that Christ has not been rightly presented to the hearts of the people. Too often it has not been Christ at all—it has been but a lifeless semblance of Christianity—to which they have given their adhesion. The fear of hell, the hope of heaven—these have been often the chief motives of religion; and alms-giving, church-going, Bible-reading, and the use of the sacraments, have been the means by which men have thought they could escape the one and secure the other. Asking still further the cause for this perversion, by which Christ has been converted into a second Law, we find that in some cases, and more especially in recent times, it appears to have arisen in part from the miraculous element in our religion. This has made Christ unreal to some of us by taking