time. Its fortunes have always been
unpredictable; each new development a surprise to those who witnessed
it. "As the lightning ... so shall be the coming of the Son of Man."

The application of this to what follows will be obvious as we proceed.

To Bishop Gore's denial that Christianity has failed, on the ground
that "it has never been tried," Mr Graham Wallas makes the effective
reply that a religion that has been adopted by the great States of the
world for fifteen centuries and never been "tried" is a religion that
has failed. In this Mr Wallas follows the proper method of judging
Christianity by its own high standards, which certainly require that it
should have been tried ere this. "What thou doest do _quickly_" was
spoken to Judas Iscariot. Does it follow that "What thou doest do
slowly, putting it off, if it so pleases, for fifteen centuries" was
intended to be the motto of the Christian Church?

The command to "sell all that thou hast and give to the poor" was
doubtless spoken "to a particular young man on a particular occasion."
But the parable of the Good Samaritan, with its pungent ending "go and
do thou likewise," was also spoken to a particular lawyer on a
particular occasion. And so with the teachings of Christ in general.
All his universals were seen in particulars. If, then, we are to
discharge everything that was spoken "to particular individuals on
particular occasions" as inapplicable to modern conditions, or to the
world at large, we shall find that there is not much left that we can
apply to anything. What, indeed, remains? The "spirit" of it all?
Yes: but a very different spirit from that which makes these convenient
excisions. Many of the alleged excuses for the failure of Christianity
have been pitched in this key. They are unconvincing.

Others fall back on the magic words "slow and gradual," words that have
induced many persons to believe that the slower and more gradual a
process is the more surely it is divine--as against an earlier thought
which armed the gods with thunderbolts. The convenience of this excuse
is that no depth of failure can be so extreme as not to be covered by
it--just as, in the case cited above, no betrayal of Christ's
principles can be so complete as not to be covered by the plea that the
principles in question "were spoken to particular individuals on
particular occasions." But though the one argument is as convenient as
the other, it is no more sat