heso par’ ahython hiohysa, thehon d’ haphoeike kelehythoy, med’ heti sohisi phodessin hypostrhepseiast ’Holympon, hall’ ahiehi perhi kehinon hohizye kahi he phylasse, ehist ho khe s’ he halochon poihesetai, he ho ge dohylen.[49]

It is as a slave, not as an honoured help-mate, that the Social Democrats would treat any Christian body that helped them to overthrow our present civilisation.  And rightly; for Christ’s only injunction in the sphere of economics was, ‘Take heed and beware of all covetousness,’ He refused pointedly to have anything to do with disputes about the distribution of property; and in the parable of the Prodigal Son the demand, ‘Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me,’ is the prelude to a journey in that ‘far country’ which is forgetfulness of God (terra longinqua est oblivio Dei).  Christ unquestionably meant His followers to think but little of the accessories of life.  He believed that if men could be induced to adopt the true standard of values, economic relations would adjust themselves.  He promised His disciples that they should not want the necessaries of subsistence, and for the rest, He held that the freedom from anxiety, covetousness, and envy, which He enjoined as a duty, would also make their life happy.  This is a very different spirit from that which makes Socialism a force in politics.

Bishop Gore, we may be sure, will not willingly allow the High Church party to be entangled in corrupt alliances.  When he handles what may be called applied Christianity, he does so in a manner which makes us rejoice at the popularity of his books.  The little commentaries on the Sermon on the Mount, and on the Epistles to the Romans and Ephesians, are admirable.  They are simple, practical, and profound.  We subjoin a short analysis of the notes on the first part of the Sermon on the Mount, as an illustration of the teaching which runs all through the three commentaries.

The Sermon on the Mount is not the whole of Christianity.  It is the climax of law, of the letter that killeth.  The Divine requirement is pressed home with unequalled force upon the conscience; yet not in the form of mere laws of conduct, but as a type of character.  It is promulgated not by an inaccessible God, but by the Divine Love manifested in manhood.  The hard demand of the letter is closely connected with the promise of the Spirit.  We are told that many of the precepts in the sermon were anticipated by Pagan and Jewish writers.  But this we might have expected, since all men are rational and moral through fellowship with the Word, who is also the Reason of God.  Christ is the light which in conscience and reason lightens every man throughout the history of the race.  But the Sermon is comprehensive where other summaries are fragmentary, it is pure where they are mixed.  It is teaching for grown men, who require principles, not rules.  And it is authoritative, reinforced by the mysterious Person of the speaker.