assed that the
Church herself became reconciled to the possession of riches. Our own
age, however, desires to uplift the poor to the level of the rich, and
a more generous spirit is manifested, in accordance with the progress
made by the science of social reform. Still it is, at bottom, the same
spirit of brotherhood, enlarged and deepened, which now seeks to level
from below upwards instead of from above downwards. Distrust and
suspicion are directed chiefly towards the "New Rich," products of the
war, who have built up their fortunes on the ruin and misery of others,
and to these might be addressed the words of Jesus to the wealthy of
His time--"Be ye faithful stewards"--that is to say, "Make good
investments for the Kingdom of God in the interests of your fellow-men."

We are witnessing a revival of the "good tidings for the poor," in whom
may be included the whole human community. For the revolution of
to-day differs from that of the simple Galileans, and is of grave and
universal portent, proceeding, as it does, from men who have thought
and suffered, and profited by the disorder and misery of thousands of
years.

The Gospel is in process of being renovated. All these new churches
and beliefs can only serve to strengthen the great work in which the
"Word" is incarnated. Whether produced by deliberate thought or by
unconscious cerebration, whether professed by "saints" or practised by
"initiates," they hold up a mirror to the soul of contemporary humanity
with all its miseries and doubts; and for this reason, whatever their
nature or origin, they are deserving of sympathetic study.

There are great religions and small ones, and as with works of art, we
are apt to find in each, more or less, what we ourselves bring to it.
Jeremiah, when travelling through Ancient Egypt, felt indignation at
the sight of gods with hawks' or jackals' heads; while the touching
confessions of the dead, consigned to papyrus--"I have not killed! I
have not been idle! I have not caused others to weep!"--only drew from
him exclamations of anger and contempt. Herodotus, a century later,
also understood nothing of this world of mysterious tombs, with its
moral teachings thousands of years old, or of the great spiritual
revelation with which the land of the Pharaohs is impregnated. Both
alike--Jeremiah, unmoved by the cruelty and hardness of Jehovah,
Herodotus, oblivious to the sensuality and immorality of his own gods,
who, accor