history. In its maturest form, it is a transvaluation of all values in
accordance with an absolute ideal standard--that of the Good, the True,
and the Beautiful. This idealism appears in a still more drastic form in
the religions of Asia, which preach deliverance by demonetising at a
stroke all the world's currency. Spiritual values are alone accepted;
man wins peace and freedom by renouncing in advance all of which fortune
may deprive him.

We are apt to assume, in deference to our theories of human progress,
that the evolution of religion is normally from a lower to a higher
type. It would, indeed, be absurd to question that the religion of a
civilised people is usually more spiritual and more rational than that
of barbarians. But none the less, the history of religions is generally
a history of decline. In Judaism the prophets came before the Scribes
and the Pharisees. Brahmanism and Buddhism were both degraded by
superstitions and unethical rites. Christianity, which began as a
republication of the purest prophetic teaching, has suffered the same
fate. In each case, when the revelation has lost its freshness, and the
enthusiasm which it evoked has begun to cool, a reversion to older
habits of thought and customs takes place; and sometimes it may be said
that the old religion has really conquered the new.

Christianity, as taught by its Founder, is based on a transvaluation of
values even more complete than that of Stoicism and the later Platonism,
because, while it regards the objects of ordinary ambition as a positive
hindrance to the higher life, it accepts and gives value to those pains
of sympathy which Greek thought dreaded, as detracting from the calm
enjoyment of the philosophic life. This acceptance of the world's
suffering, from which every other spiritual religion and philosophy
promise a way of escape, is perhaps the most distinctive feature of
Christian ethics. In practice, it thus achieves a more complete conquest
of evil than any other system; and by bringing sorrow and sympathy into
the Divine life, it not only presents the character and nature of the
Deity in a new light, but opens out a new ideal of moral perfection.
This is not the place for a discussion of the main characteristics of
the Gospel of Christ, and they are familiar to us all. But, since we are
now considering the charge of failure brought against Christianity in
connexion with the present world-war, it seems necessary to emphasise
two