f the
feeble, mattoid character of the religion in question, as illustrated by
its quietist saints, the Quakers, the Tolstoyans, and non-resisters in
general. When he had cooled down, he would run into a denunciation of
the asceticism of Christianity, the monastic system, hair-shirts, and so
on. Then he would come across a sweeping condemnation of its sensual
luxuriousness, its bejewelled chalices, its pompous rituals, the
extravagance of its archbishops, and the like. Christianity "was abused
for being too plain and for being too coloured." And then the sudden
obvious truth burst upon Chesterton, What if Christianity was the happy
mean?

Perhaps, after all, it is Christianity that is
sane and all its critics that are mad--in various
ways. I tested this idea by asking myself whether
there was about any of the accusers anything
morbid that might explain the accusation. I was
startled to find that this key fitted a lock. For
instance, it was certainly odd that the modern
world charged Christianity at once with bodily
austerity and with artistic pomp. But then it was
also odd, very odd, that the modern world itself
combined extreme bodily luxury with an extreme
absence of artistic pomp. The modern man thought
Becket's robes too rich and his meals too poor.
But then the modern man was really exceptional in
history. No man before ever ate such elaborate
dinners in such ugly clothes. The modern man found
the church too simple exactly where modern life
is too complex; he found the church too gorgeous
exactly where modern life is too dingy. The man
who disliked the plain fasts and feasts was mad on
_entrees_. The man who disliked vestments wore a
pair of preposterous trousers. And surely if there
was any insanity involved in the matter at all it
was in the trousers, not in the simply falling
robe. If there was any insanity at all, it was in
the extravagant _entrees_, not in the bread and
wine.

Nevertheless, Christianity was centrifugal rather than centripetal; it
was not a mere average, but a centre of gravity; not a compromise, but a
conflict. Christ was not half-God and half-man, like Hercules, but
"perfect God and perfect man." Man was not only the high