Moreover, the actual extent of its influence cannot be estimated. The inwardness and individualism of its teaching make its apparent effectiveness smaller than its real power, which works secretly and unobserved. The vices which Christ regarded with abhorrence are perversions of character--hypocrisy, hard-heartedness, and worldliness or secularity; and who can say what degree of success the Gospel has achieved in combating these? The method of Christianity is alien to all externalism and machinery; it does not lend itself to those accommodations and compromises without which nothing can be done in politics. As Harnack says, the Gospel is not one of social improvement, but of spiritual redemption. Its influence upon social and political life is indirect and obscure, operating through a subtle modification of current valuations, and curbing the competitive and acquisitive instincts, which nearly correspond with what Christ called 'Mammon' and St. Paul 'the flesh.' Christianity is a spiritual dynamic, which has very little to do directly with the mechanism of social life. It is, therefore, certain that when we speak of Christianity as a factor in human life, we must not identify it with the opinions or actions of the multitudes who are nominally Christians. We must not even identify it, without qualification, with the types of character exhibited by those who try to frame their lives in accordance with its precepts. For these types are very largely determined by the ideals which belong to the stage through which the life of the race is passing; and these differ so widely in different ages and countries that the historian of religion might well despair if he was compelled to regard them all as typical manifestations of the same idea. There are times when the disciple of Christ seems to turn his back upon society; he is occupied solely with the relation of the individual soul to God. These are periods when the opportunities for social service are much restricted by a faulty structure of the body politic; periods when secular civilisation is so brutal, or so servile, that the religious life can only be led in seclusion from it. At another time the typical Christian seems to be the active and valiant soldier of a militant corporation. At another, again, he is a philanthropist, who devotes his life to the redress of some great wrong, such as slavery, or the promotion of a more righteous system of production and distribution. In all these types we can trace the operation of the genius of Christianity, but they are partial manifestations of it, with much alien admixture. The spirit of the age, as well as the spirit of Christ, has moulded the various types of Christian piety.