This was the meaning of Jesus to the Apostle Paul. Jesus was in him;
he had put on Jesus; that is to say, Jesus lived in him like a second
soul, taking the place of his own soul and directing him accordingly.
That was religion, and it is absurd to say that the English nation at
this moment, or any section of it, is religious. Its educated
classes are inhabited by a hundred minds. We are in a state of
anarchy, each of us with a different aim and shaping himself
according to a different type; while the uneducated classes are
entirely given over to the "natural man." He was firmly persuaded
that we need religion, poor and rich alike. We need some controlling
influence to bind together our scattered energies. We do not know
what we are doing. We read one book one day and another book another
day, but it is idle wandering to right and left; it is not advancing
on a straight road. It is not possible to bind ourselves down to a
certain defined course, but still it is an enormous, an incalculable
advantage for us to have some irreversible standard set up in us by
which everything we meet is to be judged. That is the meaning of the
prophecy--whether it will ever be fulfilled God only knows--that
Christ shall judge the world. All religions have been this. They
have said that in the midst of the infinitely possible--infinitely
possible evil and infinitely possible good too--we become distracted.
A thousand forces good and bad act upon us. It is necessary, if we
are to be men, if we are to be saved, that we should be rescued from
this tumult, and that our feet should be planted upon a path. His
object, therefore, would be to preach Christ, as before said, and to
introduce into human life His unifying influence. He would try and
get them to see things with the eyes of Christ, to love with His
love, to judge with His judgment. He believed Christ was fitted to
occupy this place. He deliberately chose Christ as worthy to be our
central, shaping force. He would try by degrees to prove this; to