evoke horror in a thieves' kitchen,
who can rid themselves of those elementary instincts of the man and the
gentleman which cling to the very bones of our civilisation, cannot rid
themselves of the influence of two or three remote Oriental anecdotes
written in corrupt Greek. The fact, when realised, has about it
something stunning and hypnotic. The most convinced rationalist is in
its presence suddenly stricken with a strange and ancient vision, sees
the immense sceptical cosmogonies of this age as dreams going the way
of a thousand forgotten heresies, and believes for a moment that the
dark sayings handed down through eighteen centuries may, indeed, contain
in themselves the revolutions of which we have only begun to dream.

This value which we have above suggested, unquestionably belongs to the
Tolstoians, who may roughly be described as the new Quakers. With their
strange optimism, and their almost appalling logical courage, they offer
a tribute to Christianity which no orthodoxies could offer. It cannot
but be remarkable to watch a revolution in which both the rulers and the
rebels march under the same symbol. But the actual theory of
non-resistance itself, with all its kindred theories, is not, I think,
characterised by that intellectual obviousness and necessity which its
supporters claim for it. A pamphlet before us shows us an extraordinary
number of statements about the New Testament, of which the accuracy is
by no means so striking as the confidence. To begin with, we must
protest against a habit of quoting and paraphrasing at the same time.
When a man is discussing what Jesus meant, let him state first of all
what He said, not what the man thinks He would have said if he had
expressed Himself more clearly. Here is an instance of question and
answer:

Q. 'How did our Master Himself sum up the law in a few words?'

A. 'Be ye merciful, be ye perfect even as your Father; your Father in
the spirit world is merciful, is perfect.'

There is nothing in this, perhaps, which Christ might not have said
except the abominable metaphysical modernism of 'the spirit world'; but
to say that it is recorded that He did say it, is like saying it is
recorded that He preferred palm trees to sycamores. It is a simple and
unadulterated untruth. The author should know that these words have
meant a thousand things to a thousand people, and that if more ancient
sects had paraphrased them as cheerfully as he, he would never have had