s of weight.
Peabody, in his book, _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_, 1905, has
given, on the whole, the best resume of the discussion. He conveys
incidentally an impression of the body of literature produced in recent
years, in which it is assumed, sometimes with embitterment, that the
centre of gravity of Christianity is outside the Church. Sell, in the
very title of his illuminating little book, _Christenthum und
Weltgeschichte seit der Reformation: das Christenthum in seiner
Entwickelung ueber die Kirche hinaus_, 1910, records an impression, which
is widespread and true, that the characteristic mark of modern
Christianity is that it has transcended the organs and agencies
officially created for it. It has become non-ecclesiastical, if not
actually hostile to the Church. It has permeated the world in unexpected
fashion and does the deeds of Christianity, though rather eager to avoid
the name. The anti-clericalism of the Latin countries is not
unintelligible, the anti-ecclesiasticism of the Teutonic not without a
cause. German socialism, ever since Karl Marx, has been fundamentally
antagonistic to any religion whatsoever. It is purely secularist in
tone. This is also a strained situation, liable to become perverse. That
part of the Christian Church which understands itself, rejoices in
nothing so much as in the fact that the spirit of Christ is so widely
disseminated, his influence felt by many who do not know what influence
it is which they feel, his work done by vast numbers who would never
call themselves his workers. That part of the Church is not therewith
convinced but that there is need of the Church as institution, and of
those who are consciously disciples of Jesus in the world.

By far the largest question, however, which is raised in this connexion,
is one different from any thus far intimated. It is, perhaps, the last
question one would have expected the literature of the social movement
to raise. It is, namely, the question of the individual. Ever since the
middle of the eighteenth century a sort of universalistic optimism, to
which the individual is sacrificed, has obtained. Within the period of
which this book treats the world has won an enlargement of horizon of
which it never dreamed. It has gained a forecast of the future of
culture and civilisation which is beyond imagination. The access of
comfort makes men at home in the world as they never were at home. There
has been set a value on this lif