was precisely this which Christianity supplied, and which made it a bond of the new society when the Roman unity was broken up. That universality which was only a bare and formal outline in the Roman organization, which was a philosophical theory with the Stoics, became a reality and an enthusiasm in the early Christian Churches; for in them there was neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian or Scythian, bond or free, male or female. This was rendered possible by the life and death of our Lord, and He therefore stands forth by right as the universal spiritual King. From Him a new beginning was made, since in Him it was shown that the true bond which men needed was not force nor thought, but love; and from the first century to the present day the leading portion of the human race has been aiming at a unity which can only be attained when Christian love is supreme. For want of such a bond the Roman Empire fell. By some partial recognition of such a bond, the Imperial and Papal system of the Middle Ages gained a certain power of cohesion. For lack of its recognition in the sphere of national and, still more, of international relations, discord and violence have reigned in Europe for many centuries. This spiritual bond is at this moment the great need of the world, the long-desired crown of our civilization, and the hoped-for guarantee of its permanence. And this spiritual bond the Christian spirit and religion alone can give.

I say the Christian spirit and religion alone, for

brought out in an Essay on Roman Colonies in Mr. George Brodrick's Political Studies (Kegan Paul and Co., 1879), and also in Dr. Congreve's Lectures on the Roman Empire of the West (J. H. Parker, 1855).

ultimately there can be but one religion. If the human race is one and is to be drawn into unity, it is impossible that there can be ultimately different religions. Nay, if we mean by religion the recognition of a divine unity and of a moral order, such a recognition may be at least dimly discerned behind the veil of many and strange doctrines in all countries and ages: and this recognition, we must believe, is everywhere destined to grow to its full, that is, its Christian form. Different modes of conceiving metaphysically of the one God, different ways of approaching Him, there still may be; but all must be bound together by a central moral principle. Different moral standards there cannot ultimately be. When the actual life of man as known and lived out in the world is acknowledged as the chief concern of religion, we have in this a central point on which all religious ideas converge, and by reference to which they may continually be tested.

The ideal of life, that is religion. When this is clearly seen, can we hesitate in saying that the ideal presented by the life of Christ is supreme? It is supreme in this especially, that it admits of comprehension and of growth. It is not necessary to oppose it to any of the ideals of life which any serious religious system sets before us. If they are, indeed, placed in rivalry with the image of Christ, so as to bid us discard it in their favour, Christians will naturally be tempted, as in past times, to disparage them. But we may think of them as 'broken lights' of the one true light, or treat them, as St. Paul

treated Judaism, as school-masters to lead men to Christ; or, again, as national characteristics, destined to be numbered among the special charismata which give a local colouring to the central faith. No one doubts that our present Christian ideas are largely coloured by such influences as the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies or the notions, even the fictions, of Roman Law1. Even in the New Testament we have to admit a local colouring of the schools of Jerusalem, or Alexandria, or Tarsus. And such a development and modification of the Christian system, as we are contemplating, is quite in accordance with the teaching of a 'diversity of gifts with the same spirit. We shall ultimately have the one great ideal, that of the life of Christ, and one spirit, the spirit of Christ. But there will still be room for a Judaic and a Gentile Christianity, an artistic or a scientific Christianity, a Western Christianity, and one strongly coloured (much more strongly perhaps than we can at present conceive possible) by Oriental ideas; for Palestine is Oriental rather than European, and Christ belongs to the East at least as much as to the West. To suppose that Christianity, as it at present exists among us, is to supersede all other systems or ideals would be to narrow fatally the life of mankind. But to believe that the central moral and spiritual principles which spring from the life of Christ, those which make us conceive

1 See Note XIII, where a passage from Sir H. Maine's Ancient Law on the influence of Roman Law on the theology of the Western Church is quoted.

2 See the teaching of St. Paul in 1 Cor. xii. and Eph. iv. on this subject, which admit of a much wider application than is commonly given them.

3 See Note XIV. An extract from a Lecture by the late Baboo Keshub Chunder Sen entitled 'Jesus Christ, Europe and Asia.'

of the supreme power as fatherly love and righteousness, and of man's true life as a communion with that righteous and loving power-to believe, I say, that these principles must eventually be recognized as supreme, is not only reasonable but seems to be demanded by experience.

But these principles can never assert their supremacy merely as a philosophy. They must take form in human institutions. Christianity is not a mere spirit, a spirit unclothed, but it enters into the institutions of mankind and moulds or reforms them for its own purposes, and thus changes human society into the Church and body of Christ. And, since the progress of mankind is towards unity of organization (while allowing room for local differences), the result to which we look must be not only a universal Christianity but a universal Christian Church. The two factors, that of human organization growing to completeness, and that of the Christian spirit longing for an adequate body, thus find their meeting-place. That meeting-place must be a supreme Christian federation (a federation, the feeble beginnings of which we already see), with which all nations and minor societies will work in harmony. Thus we are brought round once more to the hope of a universal Church, which is synonymous with the human race organized in accordance with the Christian principle, and becoming, in all the relations of its component members, the home and organ of the Spirit of God.

The Church thus appears as the world transfigured by the Christian spirit of love. It will be the object of these Lectures to verify and impress this idea by showing

how its realization has been aimed at in the religious development of mankind. It will not be attempted to do this by any exhaustive account of the religions of the world or of universal history, which would give these Lectures too great an expansion. If we believe that the Hebraic and Christian line of religious development is central and the others subsidiary, we may be content to keep to the main stream: for in this the Kingdom of God, which has been unconsciously sought by other systems, has been the object of conscious aim and practical effort.

The second Lecture, accordingly, will treat exclusively of Judaism. It will be pointed out that Judaism was not a religion merely but a polity, its aim being the establishment of righteousness in the relations of men within the commonwealth; that the political and moral laws and the national organization form its central point, its kings and judges being in the fullest sense ministers of God. It will be shown also that this, rather than what is strictly called religious doctrine, formed the main subject of the Hebrew writings, and that the prophets were practical teachers and statesmen, urging continually upon the people and their rulers those just and loving relations in which the kingdom of God consists.

In the third Lecture the same purpose will be traced in the teaching of our Lord and His Apostles, and the founding of the Christian Church. It will be shown that this teaching was not meant to result in the formation of a separate society for the purposes of religious worship, instruction and beneficence, but in a