The first Sunday on which I preached after being accepted was a dull
day in November, but there was no dullness in me. The congregation had
increased a good deal during the past four weeks, and I was stimulated
by the prospect of the new life before me. It seemed to be a fit
opportunity to say something generally about Christianity and its
special peculiarities. I began by pointing out that each philosophy
and religion which had arisen in the world was the answer to a question
earnestly asked at the time; it was a remedy proposed to meet some
extreme pressure. Religions and philosophies were not created by idle
people who sat down and said, "Let us build up a system of beliefs upon
the universe; what shall we say about immortality, about sin?" and so
on. Unless there had been antecedent necessity there could have been
no religion; and no problem of life or death could be solved except
under the weight of that necessity. The stoical morality arose out of
the condition of Rome when the scholar and the pious man could do
nothing but simply strengthen his knees and back to bear an inevitable
burden. He was forced to find some counterpoise for the misery of
poverty and persecution, and he found it in the denial of their power
to touch him. So with Christianity.

Jesus was a poor solitary thinker, confronted by two enormous and
overpowering organisations--the Jewish hierarchy and the Roman State.
He taught the doctrine of the kingdom of heaven; He trained Himself to
have faith in the absolute monarchy of the soul, the absolute monarchy
of His own; He tells us that each man should learn to find peace in his
own thoughts, his own visions. It is a most difficult thing to do;
most difficult to believe that my highest happiness consists in my
perception of whatever is beautiful. If I by myself watch the sun
rise, or the stars come out in the evening, or feel the love of man or