mentalising about
sin has taken the place of the more robust view of earlier times, and
evil is traced to untoward environment rather than to feebleness of
individual will. And finally, to name no other cause, there is a
tendency in our day among all classes to divorce religion from life--to
separate the sacred from the secular, and to regard worship and work as
belonging to two entirely distinct realms of existence.

For these reasons, among others, there is a special need, as it seems
to us, for a systematic study of Christian Ethics on the part of those
who are to be the leaders of thought and the teachers of the people.
The materialistic view of life must be met by a more adequate Christian
philosophy. The unfaith and pessimism of the age must be overcome by
the advocacy of an idealistic conception which insists not only upon
the personality and worth of man, involving duties as well as rights,
but also upon the supremacy of conscience in obedience to the law of
Christ. Above all, we need an ethic which will show that religion must
be co-extensive with life, transfiguring and spiritualising all its
activities and relationships. Life is a unity and all duty is one,
whether it be duty to God or duty to man. It must be all of a piece,
like the robe of Christ, woven from the top to the bottom without seam.
It takes its spring from one source and is dominated by one spirit. In
the Christianity of Christ there stand conspicuous two great ideas
bound together, indeed, in a higher--love to God the Father. These are
personal perfection and the service of mankind--the culture of self and
the care of others. 'Be ye perfect' and 'love your neighbour as
yourself.' It is the glory of Christianity to have harmonised these
seemingly competing aims. The disciple of Christ finds that he cannot
realise his own life except as he seeks the good of others; and that he
cannot effectively help his fellows except by giving to them that which
he himself is. This, as we take it, is the Christian conception of the
moral life; and it is {6} the business of Christian Ethics to show that
it is at once reasonable and practical.

The present volume will be divided into _four_ main parts, entitled,
_Postulates_, _Personality_, _Character_ and _Conduct_. The _first_
will deal with the meaning of Ethics generally and its relation to
cognate subjects; and specially with the Philosophical, Psychological
and Theological presuppositions of