tion of their being taken as
correct likenesses. It is right {20} that we should repel with
indignation the ludicrous and intolerable caricatures which are
presented as our belief, the unwarrantable consequences which are
deduced from it. It is right that we should remove misapprehensions
and refute calumnies; but, above all it is necessary that we should
take heed to our own conduct and our own character. The scandals which
we have so much reason to deplore owe their existence, not to
Christianity, but to the absence of Christianity. And the very sneers
which greet any departure from rectitude or morality on the part of a
professing Christian prove that such a departure is not a
manifestation, but a renunciation of Christianity, that what is
expected of Christians is the highest and the best that human nature
can produce.

'If,' argues Mr. Blatchford, 'if to praise Christ in words and deny Him
in deeds be Christianity, then London is a Christian city and England
is a Christian nation. For it is {21} very evident that our common
English ideals are anti-Christian, and that our commercial, foreign,
and social affairs are run on anti-Christian lines.'[17] As Mr.
Blatchford's life is spent in deploring the baseness of 'our common
English ideals,' and in exposing the iniquity of the methods in which
'our commercial, foreign, and social affairs' are conducted, the
logical inference would seem to be that, as anti-Christian ideals and
anti-Christian lines have so signally failed, it might be well to give
Christian ideals and Christian lines a trial. 'In a really humane and
civilised nation,' Mr. Blatchford maintains, 'there should be, and
there need be, no such thing as Poverty, Ignorance, Crime, Idleness,
War, Slavery, Hate, Envy, Pride, Greed, Gluttony, Vice. But,' he
continues his curious argument, 'this is not a humane and civilised
nation, and never will be while it accepts Christianity as its
religion. These,' {22} so he adds as an irresistible conclusion,
'these are my reasons for opposing Christianity.'[18] Very good
reasons, if Christianity taught such a creed and encouraged such a
morality. But that any human being should give such a description of
the purpose of Christian Faith indicates either that the describer is
swayed by blindest prejudice or else that no genuine Christian has ever
crossed his path.

'What if some do not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of
God of none effect? God forbi