nt Christian. From the very start every Christian had to know
and to understand, and he had to read the Gospels; he had to be able
to give the reason for his faith. He was committed to a great
propaganda, to the preaching of Jesus, and he had to preach with
penetration and appeal. There they were loyal to the essential idea
of Jesus--they were "sons of fact." They read about Jesus,[32] and
they knew him, and they knew where they stood. This has been the
essence of the Christian religion. Put that alongside of the pitiful
defence which Plutarch makes of obscene rites, filthy images,
foolish traditions. Who did the thinking in that ancient world?
Again and again it was the Christian. He out-thought the world.

The old religion crumbled and fell, beaten in thought, in morals, in
life, in death. And by and by the only name for it was paganism, the
religion of the back-country village, of the out-of-the-way places.
Christ had conquered. "Dic tropoeum passionis, dic triumphalem
Crucem", sang Prudentius--"Sing the trophy of the Passion; sing the
all-triumphant Cross." The ancients thought that God repeated the
whole history of the universe over and over again, like a cinema
show. Some of them thought the kingdoms rise and fall by pure
chance. No, said Prudentius, God planned; God developed the history
of mankind; he made Rome for his own purposes, for Christ.

What is the explanation of it? We who live in a rational universe,
where real results come from real causes, must ask what is the power
that has carried the Christian Church to victory over that great old
religion. And there is another question: is this story going to be
repeated? What is there about Shiva, Kali, or Shri Krishna that
essentially differentiates them from the gods of Greece and Rome and
Egypt? Tradition, legend, philosophy--point by point, we find the
same thing; and we find the same Christian Church, with the same
ideals, facing the same conflict. What will be the result? The
result will be the same. We have seen in China, in the last two
decades, how the Christian Church is true to its traditions; how men
can die for Jesus Christ. In the Greek Church--a suffering
Church--on the round sacramental wafer there is a cross, and in the
four corners there are the eight letters, IE, XE, NI, KA, "Jesus
Christ conquers." That is the story of the Christian Church in the
Roman Empire. That is the story which, please God, we shall see
again in India. "Jesus Christ