"CONSCIENCE AND CHRIST."
ITO THE EDITOR OF Till "SPECTATOR.") Str.,—In your notice of Professor Rashdall's Conscience and Christ (Spectator, July 1st) you write : " Ho thinks also that where changed eondiVom make Christ's application of His eternal principles unsuitable to ter. present day, we may loyally disregard the application if we do not Baer fiee the spirit of the command." Do not Professor Rash- dell's words show that he exaggerates the difference between Christ's day and the present day ? If Christ's command to give without stint had not been from the first known to be subject to the limitation which we know that it must be subject to, it would nothave been accepted by persene who deaired the good of their neighbours. For there were then children who asked for things the possession of which would have injured them, and drunkards who demanded drink which would have made them dangerous to others and themselves. From the first, all Christ's other teaching was limited by the first, the great Commandment, that God is to be loved with mind as well as with soul; that is, that it is our duty to try to make good conquer evil. The things which wo ought to do for others because we would that others should do them for us, are not the things which in our self-indulgent moods we should like to have done for us, but the things which, at the times when we most fully desire and strive for the victory of good over evil, we would that others should do unto us. This control of all Christ's other teaching by the Great Commandment seems to me to make clear the lessons which we learn from Him respecting war. When wo earnestly desire that good shall conquer evil, we know that it is better for us to cease to live than to try to make evil conquer good, and, if we have that belief, we must also believe that, if we cannot prevent other people from helping to make evil conquer good by gentler means, it is our duty to kill them. Does the parable of the unjust steward involve, as you say it does, " a hopelessly vexed question" ? If people who desire the wslfare of the community would show as much ingenuity and perse- verance in their efforts to promote it as rogues like the unjust steward do in trying to attain their evil objects, there would be much less sin and misery in the world than there is at present.—I am, Sir, &c., H.
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