] whose closing days on earth, they
say, were illumined by one supreme wonder--his face calm and blissful,
glowing radiant like the glory of a setting sun, his very raiment
turned white like the driven snow. A beauteous imagery! But there was
no external transfiguration. It was but a type of the radiant purity
within; a witness to the "beauty of holiness". It was an emblem of
what all may be in some far-off day, when the lowliest amongst us
learns to follow the Christs, the blessed company of all elect souls,
in the way which begins and ends in the eternal righteousness.

[1] In the same way the Buddha was "transfigured". See Doane's _Bible
Myths_.

X.

THE ETHICAL ASPECT OF WAR.

An idealism such as that which substantially identifies religion with
morality, is suitably occupied, as occasion offers, in the discussion
of those questions of public interest which have an immediate bearing
on the well-being of communities. In this respect it departs markedly
from the attitude taken up by those Churches, which afford little or no
guidance on such matters, probably because it is felt by priests and
prelates that their functions are rather of an ultra-mundane character,
and that their most important duty is to prepare humanity for the
enjoyment of another life after this unsatisfactory stage has passed.
Hence the sharp line of distinction they draw between the Church and
the world, the one the kingdom of saints, the other "lying" hopelessly
"in wickedness". Hence, again, their distinction of "holy days" and
secular days, Sunday being devoted to religious exercises, while the
remaining six days are presumably to be occupied in wholly secular
enterprise. The distinction affects our very attire. Religious rites
being of a totally different character from the duties we accomplish
during the week, there is nothing for it but to don "our blacks," to
quote the language of a current popular play, and enact subsequently
the ceremonial described as the church parade. It is the same feeling
which causes the average Englishman to lapse into a sort of funereal
solemnity at the very mention of the word religion, or of anything
allied to it. The divorce of religion from ordinary life could not be
more plainly indicated than by such phenomena as we have noticed.

It is, of course, one of the main objects of our movement to show the
falsity of this distinction between the Church and the world, between
religion and m