ry of Christianity if at
a crisis we need 'the blood of martyrs'--or something morally
equivalent to their blood--for 'a seed,' the seed of a fresh growth of
Christian corporate life. No fresh start worth making is possible
without personal sacrifices; and to recover anything resembling St.
Paul's ethical standard for Christian society we need indeed a fresh
start. But the few Tractarians of sixty years ago by industry,
patience and prayer effected a kind of revolution in the Church as a
whole; and reformers of Christian social relations may with the same
weapons--and with no other--do the like.

[1] 1 Cor. xii. 25, 26.

[2] Zech. viii. 16, 17.

[3] Ps. iv. 4, according to the LXX. But the English version 'Stand in
awe and sin not' is probably correct.

[4] 2 Thess. iii. 10.

[5] Cf. Col. iv. 6: 'Let your speech be always with grace' or
'graciousness'; Luke iv. 22: 'gracious words'; Ps. xlv. 2: 'Grace is
poured into thy lips'; Eccles. x. 12: 'The words of a wise man's mouth
are gracious'; Ecclus. xxi. 16: 'Grace shall be found in the lips of
the wise.'

[6] See app. note F, p. 271, _The Ethics of Catholicism_.

[7] See _Report of Lambeth Conference_, 1897. S.P.C.K., pp. 136 ff.;
and app. note G, p. 274.

{192}

DIVISION II. Sec. 3. CHAPTER V. 1-14.

_The Christian life an imitation of God and a life in the light._

[Sidenote: _The imitation of God_]

St. Paul has just suggested the thought of imitating God by ready
forgiveness. And in fact here--in the imitation of God--is one of the
greatest of the new ideas and motives which Christianity supplies. God
has manifested Himself in Christ under human conditions. He has
translated the unimaginable Godhead into terms of our own well-known
human nature. For Christ is very man, yet He is the Son of God, truly
God, and His character is God's character. For the Christian
henceforth in a quite new sense God is imitable: He can become a
pattern for actual human life. As children partly consciously and
partly unconsciously imitate their parents, so we Christians as
'beloved children' are to 'become imitators of God.'

And it is quite plain what the character of {193} God as manifested in
Christ is. It is love; and to imitate God is therefore to 'walk in
love,' that is, to conduct one's life with love as its conscious motive
and atmosphere. Moreover, the love of Christ is a love which shows
itself in self-sacrifice. 'He offered himself as a