Thus introduced into the world, Christianity has a corresponding, and a peculiar view of the world. By this it is differentiated from other religions as well as by its lofty claims. Chris tianity does not view the world as miserable, as some Oriental religions do, and recommend self effacement as the remedy. The world is miser able; but the chief thing is its sin. Christianity views the world as sinful and as condemned before the bar of God for its guilt. The world is a lost world. Christianity does not necessarily reject evolution (q.v.). whereby the race is viewed as progressing upon the whole, and even the Church as developing in grace and knowledge. but it nevertheless regards man as fallen. There was an original sin in the early history of the race, and by heredity this has brought corruption, dis order, disharmony, into all the succeeding genera tions. The result is that the world is a king dom of evil. Man was made to know God. Re move this knowledge from him by sin, and he tends to evil, because his upward tendencies •d upon the presence of his designed environ ment, God. The hopeless ruin of man apart from God springs from the fact that nothing can rise in the scale of moral life, or any other life. when it is deprived of the sole designed agency of its elevation. But with this view of man and the world is combined another. The ap parent ta•ssitnism is changed to an optimism. Man is capable of salvation. and is. in the divine design, something great and noble. Christian ity comes to bring into his history the saving power which shall rescue him from himself and make him again a son of God. It presents to him in Jesus Christ an ideal of purity •hieh, under the ministration of the divine Spirit. con vinces him of his sin. The same Spirit produces a new allegiance in his soul, allegiance to God in Christ, creates a new purpose to do the right, animates him by a new affection, that of an all embraeing love, and produces a new obedience to the will of God. The change in him is not a mere change of purpose. It is accompanied with the gift of the Spirit as an abiding, renovating, in spiring, and enabling presence. so that the man finds a new power in himself to overcome the temptations of the world. Christianity puts him, also, in a new society; and it thus saves him. It brings him out from under the con demnation of the law of God, it puts him again in his old position of communion with his Father, and thus it both shows what he was in tended to be, and helps him increasingly to attain to that idea].
Some external organization is. of course, neces sary if the work of Christianity is to be dune in the world. Accordingly there has always been a Church. The sacerdotal tendency, transplanted from Judaism into early Christianity, strength ened by Augustine (q.v.), and culminating in the Papacy, identified the visible with the in visible Church, made membership in it essential to salvation, and viewed the hierarchy as essen tial to the being of the Church. This view is largely held in the Anglican communion at the present time. Other Protestant hodies have. how ever, laid the emphasis upon the invisible Church to such a degree that they have acknowledged the validity of any Church organization which seemed to possess the Spirit of Christ.
The evidences of Christianity vary from age to age according to the needs of that age; they must, however, always consist ill the display of the essential meaning of Christianity and its place in the plan of the world. The chief exter nal arguments were formerly derived from the fulfillment of prophecy and from the testimony of miracles. The modern stress upon law in the world has caused a change at this point. Proph ecy and miracle themselves have now become an object of attack, and need defense. This is de rived from their inseparability from the sub stance of Christian doctrine and from the truth of that as a whole. The argument for the truth of Christianity as a whole is derived from two principal sources: from history, particularly from Christianity's place in history as a force cooperating with other forces to make history what it is, and that upon its best side; and from the reasonableness of its doctrines and their agreement with the results of every other realm of human knowledge. The internal evidences of Christianity were formerly occupied largely with the character of Christ and the career of the apostles as both exhibiting the presence of a supernatural power. While these arguments have not passed away, and never can, there has been a tendency of late to lay a new stress upon Christian experience as a source of evidence. Not only does the Gospel, when accepted and tried, do for the sinner what it professes itself able to do. and thus prove itself because 'it works,' but the Christian (Mlles to possess an experiential and thus an independent knowledge of the chief truths. of Christianity, which is logically independent of the Scriptures and the Church, and is thus able to confirm their claims. Consult Stearns. Eri (fence of Christian Experience (New York, 1891).
The extension of Christianity is no mean argument in its favor and no small evidence of its real character. It early extended with al most incredible rapidity over the Boman Empire. It is still extending, and in the missions of the Nineteenth Century has renewed the triumphs of its youth.
PE Y. Cha 11(1. /.( g(',/ le du ( 5 \ Pa ris, 1802 I : Kiinigsdor I. k a tho/isch( ab:h re (5th ed.. Donau wirth, 1838) : Fenerbach. Das des h t Leipzig. 1841) : Ullmann, Vass WCS, S 0111118 (Hamburg. 1845) ; Paley. Eni d, Hers of Christianity (ed. by Birks, New York, 1s4s) ; S•hleiermather, christ/Whe (!aubc nach den Grundsatzen de r erangelischcn Kirehc ,n1 usa min( uha nye dargestellt new ed.. Valle, 1897 ) ; Bolan, // istoirt des oriyines du ehrist ian ism(' ( Paris, ISG2-83) ; Fisher, `upe'rn3toral Ori gin of Christianity (New York. 1875) ; Bender, Ibis Wes, a d' r Ce igion (4th ed.. Bonn, 1888) : Dreyer. ndoginat inches Christ Muni (4th ed., Brunswick, 1890) : Lipsius, Die Ilauptpunkte r chrisrtiuhen Gla bensleh re (Brunswick, 1801) ; Drummond, The Programme of Chris t ia nit y (London, ; Harnack, What is t'hristianityl (Eng. trans., London, 1901).