e ideal Christian attitude which
accepts the divine will perfectly, and says to the servants: "Whatsoever
he saith unto you, do it."

"They have no wine": S. Mary's word expresses the present weakness of
humanity, Man is born in sin, that is, out of union with God. That hoary
statement of dogmatic theology seems to stir the wrath of the modern
mind more than any other dogma of the Christian Faith, except it be the
dogma of eternal punishment. It is rather an amusing phenomenon that
those who have no visible basis for pride are likely to be the most
consumed with it. The pride of Diogenes was visible through the holes in
his carpet; the pride of liberalism is visible in its irritability
whenever the subject of sin, especially original sin, is mentioned. Yet
the very complacency of liberalism about the perfection of man, is but
another evidence (if we needed another) of his inherent sinfulness, his
weakness in the face of moral ideals. If we confess our sins we are on
the way to forgiveness; but if we say that we have no sin the truth is
not in us.

This boasting of capacity to be pure and strong without God,
theologically the Pelagian heresy, is sufficiently answered by a
cursory view of what humanity has done and does do. Even where the
Christian religion has been accepted the accomplishment is hardly ground
for boasting. The plain fact is (and you may account for it how you
like, it remains in any case a fact) that human beings are terribly weak
in the face of moral and spiritual ideals. They are not sufficiently
drawn by them to overcome the tendency of their nature toward a quite
opposite set of ideals. We do run easily and spontaneously after ideals
which the calm and enlightened judgment of the race, whether Christian
or non-Christian, has continuously disapproved. We know that Buddha and
Mahomet and Confucius would repudiate Paris and Berlin and New York and
London with the same certainty if not with the same energy as Christ. We
live in a time when a decisive public opinion gets its way; and
therefore we are quite safe in saying that the misery and sin which go
unchecked in the very centres of modern civilisation exist and continue
because there is no decided public opinion against them.

All attempts at reform which are merely attempts to reform machinery are
futile, they can produce only passing and superficial results. There is
only one medicine for the disease of the world, and that medicine is the
Blood o