f inward
character: that outward reforms without moral redemption would effect
evil rather than good. All this is true and it is necessary to explain
it. But the convincing demonstration begins at that point where
Christianity makes man feel, and see in fact, that it contains in
itself the remedy for social evils, because it has the spirit of love:
where the Church is so actually presented as that men should feel and
know that this is a true human {137} brotherhood. It is the social,
human, brotherly power of the Church which is what is at the present
moment best calculated to win the consciences and convince the
intellects of men. But this actual living spirit of self-sacrificing
love--this spirit of real brotherhood--how 'frost-bound' it is! How
large the area of the Church, how many its institutions, where it is
not (to say the least) the most obvious thing represented! In fact,
social reform, and that the most thorough and the most permanent,
requires nothing more than that professing Christians should be better
Christians, Christians who really believe what St. Paul and St. John
say about the love of the brethren. Come then, O breath of the divine
Spirit, and breathe upon these bones of the Christian Church, that they
may live!

And outside the area of nominal Christianity how 'frost-bound' our
evangelizing love. Surely the Church of England, as part of the
expansive British nation, has an apostleship to the nations comparable
to St. Paul's. Yet missionary zeal, as directed towards the natives of
India, or Japan, or Africa, is a very restricted thing; noticeably
restricted it must be confessed among those who most love the name of
Catholic: and almost non-existent in the great majority of those who
are {138} yet members of the national Church. But it cannot be too
deeply felt that to St. Paul the reconciliation of men with God is
inseparable from the reconciliation of man with man. The atonement
with God that is not an atonement among men he would not own. A peace
with God that leaves us content that Hindoos and Japanese and Africans
should not be of our religion is a false peace. A Christian who is not
really in heart and will a missionary is not a Christian at all.
Missionary effort is not a speciality of a few Christians, though, like
every other part of Christian life, it has its special organs. It is
an essential, never to be forgotten, part of all true Christian living,
and thinking, and prayin