religion
is that, in all, man seeks after God. The finality of Christianity
lies in the fact that it reveals the God for whom man seeks. What was
true in other religions was the belief in the possibility of communion
with God, and the belief that only as a member of a society could the
individual man attain {259} to that communion. What is offered by
Christianity is a means of grace whereby that communion may be attained
and a society in which the individual may attain it. Christianity
offers a means whereby the end aimed at by all religions may be
realised. Its finality, therefore, does not consist in its
chronological relation to other religions. It is not final because, or
in the sense that, it supervened in the order of time upon previous
religions, or that it fulfilled only their truth. Other religions
have, as a matter of chronology, followed it, and yet others may follow
it hereafter. But their chronological order is irrelevant to the
question: Which of them best realises the end at which religion, in all
its forms, aims? And it is the answer to that question which must
determine the finality of any form of religion. No one would consider
the fact that Mahommedanism dates some centuries after Christ any proof
of its superiority to Christianity. And the lapse of time, however
much greater, would constitute no greater proof.

That different forms of religion do realise the end of religion in
different degrees is a point on which there is general agreement.
Monotheism is pronounced higher than polytheism, ethical religions
{260} higher than non-ethical. What differentiates Christianity from
other ethical religions and from other forms of monotheism, is that in
them religion appears as ancillary to morality, and imposes penalties
and rewards with a view to enforce or encourage morality. In them, at
their highest, the love of man is for his fellow-man, and usually for
himself. Christianity alone makes love of God to be the true basis and
the only end of society, both that whereby personality exists and the
end in which it seeks its realisation. Therein the Christian theory of
society differs from all others. Not merely does it hold that man
cannot make himself better without making society better, that
development of personality cannot be effected without a corresponding
development of society. But it holds that such moral development and
improvement of the individual and of society can find no ratio