inistry of
faithful priests; the comforting of women and the purifying of men by the
thought of the Virgin Mother and the saints. There are civilizers in
state and church,--Alfred, Charlemagne, Hildebrand. There is the
emergence of a social and ecclesiastical order; the ranking of kings,
barons, and vassals; of priests, bishops, and popes; the establishment of
laws and charters; the growth of liturgies and cathedrals.

The contrast is great between the simplicity of a high moral ideal, like
that of Jesus or Paul, which claims, and with such show of reason and
right, the whole allegiance of man, and the vast complexity of good and
evil in which the ideal works only as one obscure and partial element.
How simple, how clear, how sweetly inviting sounds the call,--how strange
and discordant the response!

That inconsistency was explained by the church fathers, like Augustine,
as due to the inherent badness of human nature. That universal badness
flowed from one sin of the common ancestor. That sin was induced by the
machinations of Satan, arch-enemy of God, and practically dividing the
rule of the universe with him. A logical and symmetrical explanation in
its day, but it no longer explains.

Neither does it explain, but it may profit, if the wondering inquirer
turns his thoughts for a moment on his personal history. He has had his
hours of clear vision and high resolve,--why have they borne such poor
fruit in his actual life? His own riddle is one with the riddle of
history.

Again we may say, with no pretense of probing the mystery in its depths,
but as gaining a touch of side-light, it is plain that what we look at as
the strictly moral forces of mankind--the clear thinking, the definite
purpose, the pure aspiration--must be reckoned with as only a part of the
volume of force that carries along the individual and the race. Other
elements of that force are the physical needs; the push and play of
passions ingrained in human nature; the inherited bias; the strength of
habits formed before childhood had begun to reflect,--the thousand forces
which blend with reason and choice to make up our destiny. Man's noblest
aim is to make reason and purpose the rulers in his little republic, but
at the best those rulers must deal with a set of very vigorous and often
mutinous subjects.

Let us not at least wonder, though for the moment we sigh, that neither
did the kingdom of God at once establish itself on earth, as Jes