the model of our {161} age, and that to
attempt to carry out His precepts consistently would be not only
impossible but injurious to all the higher interests of humanity.[5]

But this conclusion is based, it seems to us, upon a two-fold
misapprehension. It is founded upon an inadequate interpretation of the
life and teaching of Christ; and also upon a wholly mechanical
understanding of the meaning and value of example.

(1) What was Christ's ideal of the Christian life? Was it that of the
monk or the citizen?--the recluse who meditates apart on his own
salvation, or the worker who enters the world and contributes to the
betterment of mankind? Is the kingdom of God a realm apart and separate
from all the other domains of activity? Or has Christianity, according
to its essence, room within it for an application of its truth to the
complex relations and manifold interests of modern life? Both views have
found expression in the history of the Church. But there can be little
doubt as to which is the true interpretation of the mind of Jesus.[6]

(2) But, again, what is meant by the 'imitation of Christ' has been also
misconceived. Imitation is not a literal mechanical copying. To make
the character of another your model does not mean that you are to become
his mimic or echo. In asking us to follow Him, Christ does not desire to
suppress our individuality, but to enrich and ennoble it. When He says,
on the occasion of the feet-washing of His disciples, 'I have given you
an example, that ye should do as I have done to you,'[7] obviously it was
not the outward literal performance, but the spirit of humility and
service embodied in the act which He desired His disciples to emulate.
From another soul we receive incentives rather than rules. No teacher or
master, says Emerson, can {152} realise for us what is good.[8] Within
our own souls alone can the decision be made. We cannot hope to
interpret the character of another until there be within our own breasts
the same moral spirit from which we believe his conduct to proceed. The
very nature of goodness forbids slavish reproduction. Hence there is a
certain sense in which the paradox of Kant is true, that 'imitation finds
no place at all in morality.'[9] The question, 'What would Jesus do?' as
a test of conduct covers a quite inadequate conception of the intimate
and vital relations Christ bears to our humanity. 'It is not to copy
after Christ,' says a modern wri