give oneself unreservedly to the labour of
realising the purposes of the heavenly Father in one's own heart and
in the world, is to rise above all cares and sorrows; enthusiasm in
the Father's service is the sovereign remedy. To one who believes in
the Father, and seeks to live as his child, no despair is possible.
To be engaged in his business is at all times the highest happiness,
and his kingdom is assuredly coming, though man has still the
privilege of working for it,--the kingdom in which all darkness and
evil will be put away.

We have indicated the chief points which in a scientific comparison
of Christianity with other religions appear to constitute its
distinctive character; and we have sought to make our statement such
as the reasonable adherent of other religions will feel to be
warranted. The points are these. Christianity is a religion of
freedom, it is a system of inner inspiration more than of external
law or system, it is embodied in the living person of its founder, in
which alone it can be truly seen; and the founder is one who is
living himself in the relation to God to which he calls men to come,
and feels himself called and sent to be the Saviour of men.

It is impossible in this work to treat Christianity on the same scale
as the other religions; but the question of its universalism must
necessarily receive attention. Jesus himself did not expressly say
that his religion was for all men. It was his immediate aim to bring
about the renewal of the faith of his countrymen, and to give it a
more spiritual character; and some of his followers considered that
he had aimed at nothing more than this. But he formed a circle of
disciples and adherents, which afterwards came to be the Christian
Church, and he attached no ritual condition whatever to membership in
that community. Nay, more; by his repudiation of the Jewish system of
tradition he showed that the Jewish laws of ritual purity were not
binding upon his disciples, and the further inference could readily
be drawn, that one could enter the Kingdom without being a Jew at
all. The strong missionary impulse of the infant religion brought it
very early in contact with Gentile life, and the question soon arose,
whether those who refused to become Jews could yet claim a share in
the Messiah. It was the task of the Apostle Paul to work out the
theory of the universalism of Christianity, and after some conflict
the principle was recognised that in the Chur