CHRISTIANITY AND MORALITY
[To the Editor of the Smc-r.vron.] Sim—May I be permitted to draw one or two conclusions about the relation of morality to Christianity from your series of " Studies in Sanctity " ? There is a large number of people who identify Christianity with a certain code of morality and who believe that religion simply means acting in accord- ance with principles. But the man who is always acting on principle " is recognized as an abomination. The moral mutt is a solemn man. It is because so many members of our churches are moral and irreligious that they are so forbidding. The saints were not moralists.
I do not wish to pour scorn upon those who try to be good. They are objects for pity rather than scorn. Instead of waking the world happier they only succeed in robbing it of joy and spontaneity, in crushing the life out of it with their ponderous morality. They know nothing of the joy of the saints. The strain is too great for then].
Duty is anathema to the Christian, for to hint God is Love. And so it is that There shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety-and-nine righteous persons which need no repentance." The elder son could say, " Lo, these many years do I serve thee and I never trans- gressed a commandment of thine," but the younger son had learnt to love and the fatted calf was killed.
Morality, then, for the Christian will be the spontaneous and inevitable result of love for God. It can then never make him solemn and dull, and he will no longer have a sense of hopeless striving, for love, as opposed to mere morality, is the giver of life and joy and power and freedom. So much of what we call love is tainted with selfishness. We love our children and our country when we should be loving God's children and God's country.
Through the League of Nations we are trying to build up an international morality. What is our motive ? Love for God and no other motive must be the urge behind every act of a Christian. Nothing less than building the Church Uni- versal founded upon love for God, in which there will be no need for cumbrous political machinery for the prevention of war, will be sufficient to abolish that spirit of separateness and warfare which manifests itself in every self-defensive act we do as separate individuals or separate nations.—I am, Sir., he.,
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