Christianity
the religion of which Jesus Christ is not only the founder, but also the object, since it is by Him and in Him that man recovers his union with God by an effective reconciliation. This may be said to be in a general manner its true character, and to mark the difference that exists between it and all the religions which preceded it. About primitive Christianity we possess a number of documents which are at least authentic, whatever the authority we attribute to them from a doctrinal point of view. Confining ourselves to those documents alone, whose authenticity is not disallowed by the most negative criticism, we have in the epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Romans, and the Thessalonians, a testimony to primitive Christianity which falls between the year 55 and the year 64 after Jesus Christ. It emanates from an apostle who had been in direct contact with the earliest associates of Christ, with those who had both seen and heard Him. The first three gospels, in which a historical basis is generally recognized in what concerns the actions as well as same date. We are thus led back to the very origin of Christianity. Moreover, we recognize in the Church of the earliest period made known to us, whether in the Acts of the Apostles or in writings as authentic as the letters of James and Acts of the Apostles or in writings as simple and honest hearts of the direct rethose of Peter, the living impress upon that if Christianity claims to carry to the world a revealed doctrine, revealing completely the true nature of God as well as that of man, and the normal relacompletely the true nature of God as well as that of man, and the normal relanot only as the organ of the revelation, but as its object. We have thus the right to assert that Christianity is Jesus Christ, without fo fearing to detract anybut as its object. We have thus the right Jesus Christ is His ambassador, His son, the sole mediator between God and man -in one word, the Redeemer, the Sav- Jesus Christ is His ambassador, His son, ceased to require faith in Himself as the means of again finding God by Him.
Fragmentary quotations on this point are vain. The whole gospel demands this faith in His person, and St. Paul sums it Fragmentary quotations on this point are vain. The whole gospel demands this CHRISTIANITY at Philippi: "Believe on the Lord Jesus which it brings to the world is something xvi: 31.) distinguished Christianity is herein dis from all other religions. The revelation in the world. It consists essentially in a which it brings to the world is something great work accomplished by a single per- God, and about our origin and purpose in the world. It consists essentially in a great work accomplished by a single pera bright light upon God as well as upon festation of the holy love of God. The a bright light upon God as well as upon mere exhibition of this divine work casts man and results in a doctrine which imethics, as well as far-reaching views on the history of the human race in its terethics, as well as far-reaching views on the history of the human race in its terrestrial development and in its future destiny. For had it been otherwise, Christianity must have contented itself with communicating to us the outward fact without explaining it without makbeen to alter its nature completely. It none the less remains true that for been to alter its nature completely. It none the less remains true that for Christianity doctrine is only a secondary which is its first object. This is why pretation of the fact of the great work, which is its first object. This is why it addresses itself before everything to the heart and to the conscience, though at the same time it opens up to the intellect the vastest possible horizons.
Christianity is pre-eminently the religion of redemption and of the redeemer. It has introduced to the world the grand eparative influence of a victorious love, It has introduced to the world the grand reparati ing struggle; for that reparative influence must struggle constantly against fluence must struggle constantly against suppressed. But this reparative the powers of evil, which are not magically su work cannot consist alone in the salvation of individual souls; to be worthy of God it must strive to restore all that the original fall has blighted or destroyedto make the fallen creature realize all his lofty destiny-that is to say, to reconstitute in man all the greatness kept in store for him, and to give him up without reserve to God, making the rewithout reserve to God, making the re- generating spirit penetrate into every sphere of his activity as into all his faculties. Hence the wide mission of Christianity to purify and raise everything that is human in the most diverse spheres of society, from the institutions which other to the highest culture of the inother to the highest culture of the indivine type is the continuation and apdivine type is the continuation and ap- Christ, which, after having had for its CHRISTIAN REF'D CHURCH first intent to form in the Church a posed of members of local conferences society of believing souls, pardoned and saved, called to work directly for the salvation of all that is lost, next radiates outward into all the departments of human activity. It is in this enlarged sense that we must understand the kingdom of God which the Saviour came to found in our sinful world, and of which the progress goes on only at the price of an incessant struggle, which will continue to the end of time. But this general advance of the kingdom of God in its widely human extension is always proportionate to its internal development within His Church, which keeps and cherishes the central hearth of the divine life, whence emanate all light and heat.
We know in a general manner what the vast influence of Christianity has been in the world for 19 centuries. It has renewed society in the very depths of universal decline without ever neglecting its first task, which is to lead the souls of sinners to Christ. Spiritual conquests count upon no more than this. But these victorious struggles have not been pursued without many dangers, no little resistance and as much dark uncertainty, which have sometimes had the effect of altering Christianity for a time, at least in its historical realizations, for its high ideal has never ceased to soar with serene radiance in the eternal gospel. It may be put under a bushel, but it has never been possible to extinguish it or to change its form. It is this inherent recuperative power that admits of the renewal and elevation again of Christianity, however much it may have been debased. See CHRISTIAN CHURCH, THE.
CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH, a religious denomination in the United States, the result of the secession movement from the Reformed Church in 1822, in 1857, and again in 1882. There are about 40,000 communicants, chiefly in Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa. The denomination maintains the Calvin College Theological Seminary at Grand Rapids, Mich.