god like Herakles or Dionysos; no
reason, either, why a man should not worship Jesus as well as these.
One of the Roman Emperors, a little after 200 A.D., had in his
private sanctuary four or five statues of gods, and one of them was
Jesus. Why not? The Roman world had open arms for Jesus as well as
any other god or demi-god, if people would be sensible; but the
Christian said, No. He would not allow Jesus to be put into that
pantheon, nor would he worship the gods himself, not even the
"genius" of the Emperor, his guardian spirit. The Christian
proclaimed a war of religion in which there shall be no compromise
and no peace, till Christ is lord of all; the thing shall be fought
out to the bitter end. And it has been. He was resolved that the old
gods should go; and they have gone. How was it done?

Here we touch what I think one of the greatest wonders that history
has to show. How did the Church do it? If I may invent or adapt
three words, the Christian "out-lived" the pagan, "out-died" him,
and "out-thought" him. He came into the world and lived a great deal
better than the pagan; he beat him hollow in living. Paul's Epistles
to the Corinthians do not indicate a high standard of life at
Corinth. The Corinthians were a very poor sort of Christians. But
another Epistle, written to the Corinthians a generation later,
speaks of their passion for being kind to men, and of a broadened
and deeper life, in spite of their weaknesses. Here and there one
recognizes failure all along the line--yes, but the line advances.
The old world had had morals, plenty of morals--the Stoics
overflowed with morals. But the Christian came into the world, not
with a system of morality--he had rules, indeed--"which," asks
Tertullian, "is the ampler rule, Thou shalt not commit adultery, or
the rule that forbids a single lustful look?"--but it was not rules
so much that he brought into the world as a great passion. "The Son
of God," he said, "loved me and gave himself for me. That man--Jesus
Christ loved him, gave himself for him. He is the friend of my best
Friend. My best Friend loves that man, gave himself for him, died
for him." How it alters all the relations of life! Who can kill or
rob another man, when he remembers whose hands were nailed to the
Cross for that man? See how it bears on another side of morality.
Tertullian strikes out a great phrase, a new idea altogether, when
he speaks of "the victim of the common lust." Christ died for