nobler
religion possible without these trammels and this officialdom, that
there is a deeper philosophy than this supernaturalistic rationalism,
that there is a sweeter life than this legal piety. Perhaps: I think
the pagan Greeks, the Buddhists, the Mohammedans would have much to
say for themselves before the impartial tribunal of human nature and
reason. But they are not Christians and do not wish to be. No more, in
their hearts, are the modernists, and they should feel it beneath
their dignity to pose as such; indeed the more sensitive of them
already feel it. To say they are not Christians at heart, but
diametrically opposed to the fundamental faith and purpose of
Christianity, is not to say they may not be profound mystics (as many
Hindus, Jews, and pagan Greeks have been), or excellent scholars, or
generous philanthropists. But the very motive that attaches them to
Christianity is worldly and un-Christian. They wish to preserve the
continuity of moral traditions; they wish the poetry of life to flow
down to them uninterruptedly and copiously from all the ages. It is an
amiable and wise desire; but it shows that they are men of the
Renaissance, pagan and pantheistic in their profounder sentiment, to
whom the hard and narrow realism of official Christianity is offensive
just because it presupposes that Christianity is true.

Yet even in this historical and poetical allegiance to Christianity I
suspect the modernists suffer from a serious illusion. They think the
weakness of the church lies in its not following the inspirations of
the age. But when this age is past, might not that weakness be a
source of strength again? For an idea ever to be fashionable is
ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned. No doubt it
would be dishonest in any of us now, who see clearly that Noah surely
did not lead all the animals two by two into the Ark, to say that we
believe he did so, on the ground that stories of that kind are rather
favourable to the spread of religion. No doubt such a story, and even
the fables essential to Christian theology, are now incredible to most
of us. But on the other hand it would be stupid to assume that what is
incredible to you or me now must always be incredible to mankind. What
was foolishness to the Greeks of St. Paul's day spread mightily among
them one or two hundred years later; and what is foolishness to the
modernist of to-day may edify future generations. The imagination is
sug