having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the
Kingdom of God." "Rejoice not that the spirits are subject to
you, but seek rather that your names be written in heaven." "Be
ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect." "Seek ye
first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness."

The fulfillment of this precept is only to be found in
uninterrupted progress toward the attainment of ever higher truth,
toward establishing more and more firmly an ever greater love
within oneself, and establishing more and more widely the kingdom
of God outside oneself.

It is obvious that, appearing as it did in the midst of the Jewish
and heathen world, such teaching could not be accepted by the
majority of men, who were living a life absolutely different from
what was required by it. It is obvious, too, that even for those
by whom it was accepted, it was so absolutely opposed to all their
old views that it could not be comprehensible in its full
significance.

It has been only by a succession of misunderstandings, errors,
partial explanations, and the corrections and additions of
generations that the meaning of the Christian doctrine has grown
continually more and more clear to men. The Christian view of
life has exerted an influence on the Jewish and heathen, and the
heathen and Jewish view of life has, too, exerted an influence on
the Christian. And Christianity, as the living force, has gained
more and more upon the extinct Judaism and heathenism, and has
grown continually clearer and clearer, as it freed itself from the
admixture of falsehood which had overlaid it. Men went further