the motives
were most frequently of the noblest. "In the Middle Ages
and after, men of kindly temper and the purest zeal were
absolutely devoid of mercy when heresy was suspected." Nor
are intolerance and persecution to be laid exclusively at the
door of any one religion. In Protestant countries, in England
and Scotland, the persecution and torture of alleged witches is
one of the most painful instances of the cruelties into which
men can be led by loyalty to their religious convictions. And
Mohammedanism vividly taught men how a faith might be
spread by fire and sword.

[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, pp. 56-57.]

QUIETISM AND CONSOLATION--OTHER-WORLDLINESS. Many
religions, including Christianity, have emphasized "other-worldliness."
This has most frequently taken the form of
emphasis on the life to come. This world has been conceived,
as it were, as a prelude to eternity. In the Christian world
scheme, as most clearly expounded and universally accepted
during the Middle Ages, man's chief imperative business was
salvation. All else was trivial in comparison with that
incomparable eternal bliss which would be the reward of the
virtuous, and that unending agony which would be the penalty
for the damned. "Salvation was the master Christian motive.
The Gospel of Christ was a gospel of salvation unto
eternal life. It presented itself in the self-sacrifice of divine
love, not without warnings touching its rejection."[1]

[Footnote 1: H. O. Taylor: _Medioeval Mind_, vol. I, p. 61.]

Where interest is centered on a world to come, there not
infrequently results a loss of interest and discrimination in the
goods of earthly life. "For what shall it profit a man if he
shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" The
beauties, goods, and distinctions of this world coalesce into an
indiscriminate triviality in comparison with that infinite glory
hereafter to be attained. One does not trouble one's self
about the furniture of earthly life any more than one would
take pains with the beautification of a room in which one happens
to be lodged for a night.

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth
nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor
steal.

Though on earth you may live in squalor, poverty, and disease,
yet "in my Father's house are many mansions."