The decisive point is whether the ethical teachings of Jesus supply a principle which enables us to work with zest in the world, to take the keenest interest in all the manifold activities of human society, to embrace the world with the view of penetrating it with a spiritual purpose and of thus transforming it. Do these teachings exhibit a way of making the world and the flesh instrumental to the spirit, or do they serve to turn us away from the world and its interests, to abandon the world in despair? Is the conception of spirituality as purity adequate? Purity is certainly one aspect of morality; is it the sole or the principal factor in it? The other-worldly attitude in the Gospels is certainly clearly marked. It is the background on which the ethical precepts stand forth. Tyrrel has argued as against Harnack for the close connection between the thought of Jesus and the apocalyptic vision. I asked myself, Can the apocalyptic vision, that is to say the other-worldliness, be dissociated from the ethics, or is the relation between them necessary?[11] If the world is speedily, almost immediately, coming to an end, then it is justifiable to prefer celibacy to marriage, to ignore the state, to counsel disregard of the toiling and the spinning. All of this is warranted on the assumption that the order of things in which these institutions and activities have their place is about to disappear. But if this expectation is deceived, if things continue in their ancient course, if the world and the flesh persist, taking on ever new and more baffling shapes, how is a system of ethics which is based on the assumption of one state of things to be reconciled with a state of things exactly the opposite? How shall an ethical person conduct himself in a world which his philosophy of life teaches him to reject, but with which the necessities of his existence compel him to come to terms day by day and hour by hour? There must then be compromise. And the history of Christianity up to the present moment is the record of such compromises. Monasticism was one of the earliest. A distinction was made, so to speak, between perfect and imperfect Christians, between a class of men and women who lived in ascetic seclusion, as if the world did not exist, and another class, the greater number, who managed ethically as best they could, dependent on the supererogatory merits of the real Christians or saints to eke out their unholiness. Another species of compromise is illustrated, especially in Protestant countries. It appears as a division between the contracted sphere of holiness and the circumambient sphere of the practical life, in both of which, however, the same individual has his place. Chastity, forgiveness of personal enemies, and the like virtues are to be practiced in the contracted sphere of private life, the ability to practice these virtues being derived from mystical identification with Jesus. In the Christian’s public life no such identification is