ole continent to live like beasts in such hovels, millions of negroes
cribbed, cabined, and confined in dens of disease? No doubt it is our
diurnal duty to preach that the soul of all improvement is the
improvement of the soul. But God's equilateral triangle of body, soul,
and spirit must never be ignored. Is not the body wholly _ensouled_,
and is not the soul wholly _embodied_? . . . In other words, in Africa
the only true fulfilling of your heavenly calling is the doing of
earthly things in a heavenly manner." [2]

Indeed, if any one is tempted to espouse a narrowly individualistic
gospel of regeneration, let him go to the Far East and take note of
Buddhism. Buddhism in wide areas of its life is doing precisely what
the individualists recommend. It is a religion of personal comfort and
redemption. It is not mastered by a vigorous hope of social
reformation. In many ways it is extraordinarily like medieval
Christianity. Consider this definition of his religion that was given
by one Buddhist teacher: "Religion," he said, "is a device to bring
peace of mind in the midst of conditions as they are." Conditions as
they are--settle down in them; be comfortable about them; do not try to
change them; let no prayer for the Kingdom of God on earth disturb
them; and there seek for yourselves "peace of mind in the midst of
conditions as they are." And the Buddhist teacher added, "My religion
is pure religion." But is there any such thing as really caring about
the souls of men and not caring about social habits, moral conditions,
popular recreations, economic handicaps that in every way affect them?
Of all deplorable and degenerate conceptions of religion can anything
be worse than to think of it as a "device to bring peace of mind in the
midst of conditions as they are?" Yet one finds plenty of Church
members in America whose idea of the "simple Gospel" comes perilously
near that Buddhist's idea of "pure religion."

The utter futility of endeavouring to care about the inward
transformation of men's lives while not caring about their social
environment is evident when one thinks of our international
relationships and their recurrent issue in war. War surely cannot be
thought of any longer as a school for virtue. We used to think it was.
We half believed the German war party when they told us about the
disciplinary value of their gigantic establishment, and when Lord
Roberts assured us that war was tonic for the sou