ow alike; let the German grow less slow and
reverent; the Frenchmen less experimental and swift." But the instinct
of Christian Europe says, "Let the German remain slow and reverent, that
the Frenchman may the more safely be swift and experimental. We will
make an equipoise out of these excesses. The absurdity called Germany
shall correct the insanity called France."

Last and most important, it is exactly this which explains what is so
inexplicable to all the modern critics of the history of Christianity. I
mean the monstrous wars about small points of theology, the earthquakes
of emotion about a gesture or a word. It was only a matter of an inch;
but an inch is everything when you are balancing. The Church could not
afford to swerve a hair's breadth on some things if she was to continue
her great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium. Once let
one idea become less powerful and some other idea would become too
powerful. It was no flock of sheep the Christian shepherd was leading,
but a herd of bulls and tigers, of terrible ideals and devouring
doctrines, each one of them strong enough to turn to a false religion
and lay waste the world. Remember that the Church went in specifically
for dangerous ideas; she was a lion tamer. The idea of birth through a
Holy Spirit, of the death of a divine being, of the forgiveness of sins,
or the fulfilment of prophecies, are ideas which, any one can see, need
but a touch to turn them into something blasphemous or ferocious. The
smallest link was let drop by the artificers of the Mediterranean, and
the lion of ancestral pessimism burst his chain in the forgotten forests
of the north. Of these theological equalisations I have to speak
afterwards. Here it is enough to notice that if some small mistake were
made in doctrine, huge blunders might be made in human happiness. A
sentence phrased wrong about the nature of symbolism would have broken
all the best statues in Europe. A slip in the definitions might stop all
the dances; might wither all the Christmas trees or break all the Easter
eggs. Doctrines had to be defined within strict limits, even in order
that man might enjoy general human liberties. The Church had to be
careful, if only that the world might be careless.

This is the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy. People have fallen into a
foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and
safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orth