Chapter 8 - Page 2

Reached Its Extreme Limit, and Will
Annihilate Itself.

It is often said that if Christianity is a truth, it ought to have
been accepted by everyone directly it appeared, and ought to have
transformed men's lives for the better. But this is like saying
that if the seed were ripe it ought at once to bring forth stalls,
flower, and fruit.

The Christian religion is not a legal system which, being imposed
by violence, may transform men's lives. Christianity is a new and
higher conception of life. A new conception of life cannot be
imposed on men; it can only be freely assimilated. And it can
only be freely assimilated in two ways: one spiritual and
internal, the other experimental and external.

Some people--a minority--by a kind of prophetic instinct divine
the truth of the doctrine, surrender themselves to it and adopt
it. Others--the majority--only through a long course of mistakes,
experiments, and suffering are brought to recognize the truth of
the doctrine and the necessity of adopting it.

And by this experimental external method the majority of Christian
men have now been brought to this necessity of assimilating the
doctrine. One sometimes wonders what necessitated the corruption
of Christianity which is now the greatest obstacle to its
acceptance in its true significance.

If Christianity had been presented to men in its true, uncorrupted
form, it would not have been accepted by the majority, who would
have been as untouched by it as the nations of Asia are now. The
peoples who accepted it in its corrupt form were subjected to its
slow but certain influence, and by a long course of errors and
experiments and their resultant sufferings have now been brought
to the necessity of assimilating it in its true significance.

The corruption of Christianity and its acceptance in its corrupt
form by the majority of men was as necessary as it is that the
seed should remain hidden for a certain time in the earth in order
to germinate.

Christianity is at once a doctrine of truth and a prophecy.
Eighteen centuries ago Christianity revealed to men the truth in
which they ought to live, and at the same time foretold what human
life would become if men would not live by it but continued to
live by their previous principles, and what it would become if
they accepted the Christian doctrine and carried it out in their
lives.

Laying down in the Sermon on the Mount the principles by which to
guide men's lives, Christ said: "Whosoever heareth these sayings
of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, who
built his house upon a rock; and the rain descended, and the
floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it
fell not,