not to fly from life, but to mingle with it, and yet to grow to be
not dependent on it. The Stoic ideal was a high one, to cultivate a
firmness of mind that was on the one hand not to be dismayed by
pain or suffering, and on the other to use life so temperately and
judiciously as not to form habits of indulgence which it would be
painful to discontinue. The weakness of Stoicism was that it
despised human relations; and the strength of primitive
Christianity was that, while it recommended a Stoical simplicity of
life, it taught men not to be afraid of love, but to use and lavish
love freely, as being the one thing which would survive death and
not be cut short by it. The Christian teaching came to this, that
the world was meant to be a school of love, and that love was to be
an outward-rippling ring of affection extending from the family
outwards to the tribe, the nation, the world, and on to God
Himself. It laid all its emphasis on the truth that love is the one
immortal thing, that all the joys and triumphs of the world pass
away with the decay of its material framework, but that love passes
boldly on, with linked hands, into the darkness of the unknown.

The one loss that Christianity recognised was the loss of love; the
one punishment it dreaded was the withholding of love.

As Christianity soaked into the world, it became vitiated, and drew
into itself many elements of human weakness. It became a social
force, it learned to depend on property, it fulminated a code of
criminality, and accepted human standards of prosperity and wealth.
It lost its simplicity and became sophisticated. It is hard to say
that men of the world should not, if they wish, claim to be
Christians, but the whole essence of Christianity is obscured if it
is forgotten that its vital attributes are its indifference to