The
simple-hearted Christian knows what he says, when he tells you "There's
something in religion." It has a power and a blessedness altogether
different from anything else under heaven. Knowledge is sweet, and love
is sweet, and power and victory are sweet; but religion--the religion of
Christ--is sweeter, infinitely sweeter than all. It is the life and
blessedness of the soul. It is its greatness, its strength, its glory:
its joy, its paradise, its heaven.
4. If the churches abound with defects, the cause is in humanity, and
not in Christianity. Men are not imperfect because they are Christians,
but because they are not Christian enough. The worst men are the
farthest from Christianity, and the best are nearest to it. And the
worst creeds are the least Christian, and the best are the most
Christian. And Christianity is better than the best. There is not a
virtue on earth, nor a truth in the universe, which does not form a
part, or a consistent and fitting appendage, of the Christian system.
The best, the wisest, the noblest man on earth is no better, no wiser,
no nobler, than the teachings of Jesus tend to make the whole human
race.
5. The influence which Jesus exerted on the world, and the influence
which He is still exerting, is the mightiest and most beneficent ever
experienced by mankind; and the monument which He has raised for
Himself, the Christian Church, with all its institutions, its
literatures, its agencies and achievements is, beyond all comparison,
the grandest, the noblest, and in all respects the most magnificent and
glorious that the history of the world can boast.
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