e of others. I do not pause at the moment to
account for these two antithetic tendencies, there they are; all
through the history of this sad old world of ours these two tendencies
have been in sharp conflict. Both are cosmic, both probably resolvable
in that higher unity which is too mysterious for us to penetrate, but
to our minds they are in flagrant opposition to each other. The thief
cometh to steal and to kill and to destroy; mother-love, Christ-love,
that it may give life, and that more abundantly.

In human history the antithesis is even more plainly marked. From one
point of view, history is little else than the story of the crimes and
follies of mankind. If it were entirely that, the study would be too
saddening to enter upon; but it is not all of that character, and yet
it is sufficiently so to cast a shadow over the optimism of any man who
investigates human evolution as told in song and story. The principle
that "they should take who have the power, and they should keep who
can" has ruled in human concerns from the dawn of history until to-day.
It is strong enough in our midst even now. Out industrial system is
founded upon it, and is essentially unchristian. Commercialism is
saturated with it; all men suffer from it, but often they know not how
to get free from it. Ruskin has a grimly amusing paragraph on the
parallel between an earlier civilisation and that of to-day, and the
identity in principle of the self-ward tendency in both. In mediaeval
times, as he would say, the robber baron was wont to possess himself of
a mountain fortress, whence he swooped down upon hapless passers-by to
rob them of their possessions and their lives. To-day the successful
financial magnate does the same by effecting corners in corn and such
like. The great writer adds, with characteristic irony, "I prefer the
crag baron to the bag baron." Yet with all this we see at work in
history another tendency which we can recognise as plainly as the
former, but which fills us with great hope for the future of
humanity,--it is that which is summed up in the one word "Christ."
That word stands all the world over for the things that make for more
abundant life. Just as in the text the word "thief" stands for
everything that makes for separateness, selfhood, cruelty, so the word
"Christ" stands for everything that makes for union, mutual
helpfulness, brotherly kindness. The thief stands for the tendency to
grasp and draw inw