the dark side of things and looking only at the bright, through
crying "Peace, peace" when there is no peace, nor by any of the cheap
and shallow devices on which mere verbal optimism is made to rest. We
must win our optimism at the sword's point. We must pay the price. We
must go through "the Dark Valley" and not listen to the man who thinks
he knows of a way round. At certain stages of the journey we shall see
the whole creation, as St Paul did, groaning and travailing together in
pain until now; and only at the last stage, when loyalty has stood the
test, shall we see this world of suffering and death delivered, by
redeeming love, into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Such a religion as I have been trying to describe will be found in
Christianity--yes, and in other religions also. Far be it from me to
set up an exclusive claim for Christianity at this point. Anyone who
does that goes a long way towards forfeiting his title to be called a
Christian. Let each of us look for truth where it is most accessible
and where it speaks the language he best understands. For most of us
here Christianity has this advantage. It gives the sharpest point to
the challenge of life as we know life.

Christianity is the simplest and most difficult religion in the world,
best adapted therefore for strong races, endowed with deep but silent
affections, and with the plain-dealing mind whose conversation is "Yea,
yea and nay, nay." But here let me utter a word of warning.

There is an outcry in these days for a Christianity shorn of its
complications, and reduced to its simplest and most intelligible form.
It is a thing greatly to be desired. I have been pleading for it in
what has gone before. But let nobody suppose that, when Christianity
has been reduced to its simplest and most intelligible form, it will be
found an easy religion to put into practice. It will be found
immensely more difficult than before. Only there will be this further
difference. Whereas the old difficulties, those that came from
presenting Christianity in complicated forms, merely irritated and
confused us and caused us to waste ourselves upon irrelevance, the new
ones, the difficulties of simple Christianity, meet us on a far higher
level, introduce us to essentials, and give us a battle to fight that
is really worth fighting. That is an enormous difference, but not in
the direction of making simple Christianity easier than the other ki