We now turn to another aspect of the subject. Not only has Christianity done much good in the past, but it is doing much good at the present. This also is beyond dispute; anyone can verify the fact for himself. Thousands of men and women spend their lives in self-sacrifice among the poor and sick solely for the sake of Christ. Of course, it may be said that all this is folly and that we ought to try and benefit our fellow-men for their own sake or for the sake of the State. But, whether folly or not, the fact remains. The vast majority of those who visit the poor and sick (Sisters of Mercy for instance) do not do so for the sake of the State, or even mainly for the sake of the poor themselves, but from avowedly Christian motives. They believe that Christ loves these poor, and therefore they love them too, and willingly spend their lives in trying to help them. It is also a fact that this strange _attraction_ which Christ exercises, over the hearts of men is unique in history. Can we imagine anyone spending his life in visiting the sick in some large town, and saying that he is doing it for the love of David, or of Plato, or of Mohammed? Yet all through the civilised world thousands are doing it for the love of Christ. And this influence, be it observed, is not like that of other great men, local and temporary, but world-wide and permanent. Christ is thus not only, as we saw in the last chapter, the _holiest_ of men, but the _mightiest_ of men also; the Man in short who has most influenced mankind. And, with trifling exceptions, few will dispute that this influence has been wholly for good. So judged by its fruits, Christianity is a religion which might very reasonably have had a Divine origin. On the other hand, it must be admitted that though Christianity has done so much good, it has not entirely reformed the world,--it has not even stopped wars among Christian nations--and its failure to do this, after trying for so many centuries, is thought by some to be adverse to its claims. But others think that its partial success and partial failure are just what we should expect if it were true. And what is more to the point, this seems to have been expected by its Founder, for He always implied that the good and the evil--the wheat and the tares--were to be mixed together until the end of the world. Moreover, its failure has been due almost entirely to the _inconsistency_ of its adherents. If all men were Christians, and all Christians lived up to the religion they professed, there would be little to complain of, even in this imperfect world. On the whole, then, the _effect_ of Christianity is distinctly in its favour. It has done much good, and will probably do more as time goes on; though it has not entirely reformed the world, and probably never will. But the good it has done is an actual fact which cannot be disputed, while the argument that it ought to have done more good is at least open to doubt. (3.) _Its prospects in the future._