CHRISTIAN SOCIOLOGY. VII.
THE FORCES OF HUMAN PROGRESS.
IT is comparatively easy to construct an ideal for society, but it is rare that the reformer sufficiently considers the appli- cability of his ideal to actual human nature. It is this that has made an archaeological puzzle of Plato's Republic and a romance of Utopia. Men instinctively feel that no dream of a regenerate society is worth serious consideration that does not in some dis- tinct way show its ability, as Carlyle would say, "to walk." Jesus cannot escape such a test. If his ideal is worth anything, and if his teachings are to be anything more than a collection of oriental apothegms, he must be seen to have approached the problems of human progress with a full conception of the inertia of life and the repugnance most men show towards anything like social effort. In other words, Jesus must be required to set forth with reasonable fullness the forces upon which he counted for the realization of his new social order. We ask of him not merely an ideal but a method.
I.
If, in a search for a recognition on Jesus' part of such forces, one comes to the memorabilia of his life fresh from the study of modern efforts at social regeneration, nothing is more sur- prising than the forces in human society upon which Jesus does not count.
I . It is of course not surprising to find that he distinctly refuses the use of mere physical force as a means of establishing his kingdom. 1 A Mahomet may rule as prophet in a kingdom of Allah built upon the sword, but a Jesus cannot. A Charlemagne may build an empire from Saxons who have chosen baptism as a lesser evil than death, but not so the followers of him whose
1 Matt. 4 : 10, II; John 6: 15.
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