d of the species. The attractive influence He exerts upon
men is not conditioned by their historical insight, by their ability to
sift evidence, by this or that which distinguishes man from man, but by
their innate consciousness that some higher power than themselves
exists, by their ability, if not to recognise goodness when they see it,
at least to recognise love when it is spent upon them.

But while our Lord affirms that there is that in Him which all men can
recognise and learn to love and serve, He does not say that His kingdom
will therefore be quickly formed. He does not say that this greatest
work of God will take a shorter time than the common works of God which
prolong one day of our hasty methods into a thousand years of solidly
growing purpose. If it has taken a million ages for the rocks to knit
and form for us a standing-ground and dwelling-place, we must not expect
that this kingdom, which is to be the one enduring result of this
world's history, and which can be built up only of thoroughly convinced
men and of generations slowly weeded of traditional prejudices and
customs, can be completed in a few years. No doubt interests are at
stake in human destiny and losses are made by human waste which had no
place in the physical creation of the world; still, God's methods are,
as we judge, slow, and we must not think that He who "works hitherto" is
doing nothing because the swift processes of jugglery or the hasty
methods of human workmanship find no place in the extension of Christ's
kingdom. This kingdom has a firm hold of the world and must grow. If
there is one thing certain about the future of the world, it is that
righteousness and truth will prevail. The world is bound to come to the
feet of Christ.

3. Christ's kingdom being universal, it is also and necessarily
_inward_. What is common to all men lies deepest in each. Christ was
conscious that He held the key to human nature. He knew what was in man.
With the penetrating insight of absolute purity He had gone about among
men, freely mixing with rich and with poor, with the sick and the
healthy, with the religious and the irreligious. He was as much at home
with the condemned criminal as with the blameless Pharisee; saw through
Pilate and Caiaphas alike; knew all that the keenest dramatist could
tell Him of the meannesses, the depravities, the cruelties, the blind
passions, the obstructed goodness, of men; but knew also that He could
sway all that wa