ife of heroism, but
its death. Give the hero a world like that and what will he say?
"This world," he will say, "is _not_ fit for me to live in. It spells
extinction to all that makes life worth living to me. It is the flat
opposite to what I desire. It lacks everything that makes the world
divine. No God can dwell within it. No Christ will ever visit its
melancholy shores."

And yet, is it not something like this that many of us have had in mind
of late when we have been talking of "A world fit for heroes to live
in"? Have we not conceived it as a world where heroism is a mere
incident, almost an accident, which comes in brief patches and spells,
and when the rest of life is given over to the middling virtues and to
prearranged satisfactions? There are people who cry out for this;
there is something within us all that cries out for it; but the noblest
part of us scorns it; the heroic spirit would not have it at any price.

When the hero asks for a world fit for him to live in he is thinking of
something wholly different. He desires no satisfaction save that which
is the direct fruit of his own loyalty and self-devotion. He wants
continuous employment on the level of his highest self, where love
never sleeps at her task, and where the voices of faith and hope,
whispering of new worlds to conquer, are never silent. A divine
universe is, for him, just that; it breeds ideals for great souls to
pursue; gives them incentives to the pursuit; shares with them in the
perils of it; suffers with them in their failures and triumphs with
them in their victories. Is the Soul of the World at one with us in
these great endeavours? Does it meet us on that high level with the
companionship of a Spirit akin to ours, not only asking for our
loyalty, but giving it in return? If so, God exists; the universe is
divine; and the world is fit for heroes to live in. Hallelujah, for
the Lord reigneth!

This is the side of our nature which Christianity brought to light, in
all its splendour and power, when it revealed us to ourselves in the
person of Christ--that, in all of us, which stands above the
perplexities of life and is more than a match for them; which sees evil
with the clearest eye, and at the same time overcomes it with the
deepest love. At home in the bright hours of life, which grow brighter
under the radiance it pours into them, the Christ within is always
ready when the dark ones arrive. "I am equal to that," it