Pg.101

Other motives which I believe make toward the Settlement are

the result of a certain renaissance going forward in Christianity.

The impulse to share the lives of the poor, the desire to make

social service, irrespective of propaganda, express the spirit of

Christ, is as old as Christianity itself. We have no proof from

the records themselves that the early Roman Christians, who

strained their simple art to the point of grotesqueness in their eagerness to record a "good news" on the walls of the catacombs,

considered this good news a religion. Jesus had no set of truths

labeled Religious. On the contrary, His doctrine was that all

truth is one, that the appropriation of it is freedom. His teaching

had no dogma to mark it off from truth and action in general. He

Himself called it a revelation —a life. These early Roman Christians received the Gospel message, a command to love all men,

with a oertain joyous simplicity. The image of the Good Shepherd is blithe and gay beyond the gentlest shepherd of Greek mythology; the hart no longer pants, but rushes to the water brooks.

The Christians looked for the continuous revelation, hut believed what Jesus said, that this revelation, to be retained and

made manifest, must be put into terms of action; that action is

the only medium man has for receiving and appropriating truth;

that the doctrine must be known through the will.

That Christianity has to be revealed and embodied in the line

of social progress is a corollary to the simple proposition, that

man's action is found in his social relationships in the way in

which he connects with his fellows; that his motives for action

are the zeal and affection with which he regards his fellows. By

this simple process was created a deep enthusiasm for humanity,

which regarded man as at once the organ and the object of revelation; and by this process came about the wonderful fellowship,

the true democracy of the early Church, that so captivates the

imagination. The early Christians were preeminently nonresistant. They believed in love as a cosmic force. There was no iconoclasm during the minor peace of the Church. They did not yet

denounce nor tear down temples, nor preach the end of the

world. They grew to a mighty number, hut it never occurred to

them, either in their weakness or in their strength, to regard

other men for an instant as their foes or as aliens. The spectacle

of the Christians loving all men was the most astounding Rome

had ever seen. They were eager to sacrifice themselves for the

weak, for children, and for the aged; they identified themselves