mpiler that, when he wrote, the second advent of Christ was at hand,
and that the Kingdom of Heaven was immediately to be established. For
him there was no terrestrial future worthy of consideration; the reign
of the Messiah had already begun; the consummation of all things was
impending. Hence he did not feel it necessary, or indeed possible, to
distinguish between the ideal of the perfect day and the practical
policy of the actual moment. His citizenship already was in Heaven: to
him present and future were one. The eschatological hopes of the
evangelist were of course speedily dispelled, partly by mere lapse of
time, partly by the growing wisdom and experience of the Church. The
Church learned that its early expectation of the speedy and triumphant
return of its Lord was ill-founded, and that its task was to convert the
world to righteousness, not to preside over its immediate dissolution.
Hence it accommodated its doctrines and its institutions to the changed
outlook.

This fact causes no difficulty to those who believe in the
progressiveness of revelation. Such as admit that New Testament ethics
show an advance on those of the Old, will hardly contend that in
politics any New Testament writer said the last word. What Tolstoy and
his literalist school call the corruption and secularization of the
Church was to no small degree a simple recognition of the facts that the
Earth continued to exist, and that the Roman Empire and not the New
Jerusalem was the dominant power therein. But though the Church as a
whole was guided safely through the crisis of disillusionment, it
nevertheless remains unfortunate that the compiler of the Sermon on the
Mount should have made the false assumption. For the picture which he
presents of the perfect man and the ideal society is so fascinating and
magnificent that it is not marvellous that saints and visionaries, in a
long and pathetic succession, should have repeated his error, should
have ignored the distinction between present and future, should have
assumed the actual existence of the Divine Kingdom towards which, as a
matter of fact, mankind has still a weary and protracted pilgrimage to
make; should have proclaimed the celestial anarchy, and should as a
result have been overwhelmed in tragic or ludicrous disaster.

VI. THE PACIFICIST SUCCESSION

Those who have asserted the present applicability of the full detailed
programme of the Sermon on the Mount, and have endeavour