to be realised on earth,
it can only come by the operation of universal good will. This has
been much too simple for most of the theologians, and so they have
endeavoured to twist and torture it out of all recognition. As time
went on, however, Jesus came to see that it would not be realised as
quickly as even He had thought. Men could not or would not understand;
they were looking for a kingdom which should mean plenty to eat and
drink, and universal dominion for the sons of Abraham. Even His most
immediate followers were unable to divest themselves of this notion,
and it is plain enough that they went on hoping even to the end that
Jesus would head a revolt and establish a kingdom in which they
themselves would hold positions of dignity and importance: "Grant that
we may sit, the one on thy right hand and the other on thy left in thy
kingdom." The striking rebuke which Jesus administered to these
pretensions, by setting a little child in the midst of the jealous men,
will never be forgotten while the world lasts. Jesus _did_ believe in
an earthly kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy, but it is evident
that He would have nothing to say to violence as a means of realising
it. He even believed that the kingdom had already come in the heart of
any man who was desirous of being at one with God and man and denied
himself in the effort to do it: "And when he was demanded of the
Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and
said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall
they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is
within you."

+Early Christian idea of the kingdom.+--An important fact, which I do
not think is generally recognised, is that the first Christians thought
almost precisely what the Jews did about the kingdom of God. Most
people are accustomed to think of Christianity as having been from the
first a religion which had principally to do with getting men ready for
the next world. We can hardly think about it apart from ecclesiastical
buildings, choirs, baptisms, confirmations, prayers for the sick and
dying, and so on. So much have we been accustomed to think of it in
this way that the average man reads his New Testament with these
assumptions in the background of his mind. But this is certainly not
New Testament Christianity. The apostles and their followers believed
like the Jews in the sudden establishment of an ideal commonwealth up