Christianity, therefore, came when the times were ripe for it. It came not from without, but deeply from within the pagan life of the Mediterranean. Moreover, if in this way, not in that other way, we must read the rise of Christianity, then we must read both the Renaissance and the Reformation under the same light. The Renaissance, as was just said, brought a restoration of the letter; but, necessarily, of the letter under the light of the spirit, of the letter transfigured. The Renaissance, so dramatically manifested in the Crusades, was only Christendom returning to its [p.268] birthplace. With its crusades to Jerusalem, to all the old capitals, to the pagan ideas and institutions, to the ancient languages and literatures, Christianity rediscovered itself in the past, winning back in this way some of its childhood, curing a homesickness that a worldly church had made it feel, securing for itself such a deep experience as comes to a man who, after years of wandering and forgetting, has returned to the home of his infancy. And as for the Reformation--if indeed this was a retreat, shall we say, of a defeated religion upon the Bible, its supposed impregnable fortress--we need only to remember the pagan origin, the Hebrew and the Greek inspiration, and the Roman atmosphere of that sacred book. And of the relation of Christianity to paganism, just one thing more. The Christian revelation, so wonderfully portrayed and enacted in the life and character of Jesus, was only an idealization, a spiritual interpretation, of the very present, the thoroughly actual life of the time, of the life that the pagans, doubting but believing, despairing but also trusting, resigning all but hoping for more, had already brought upon themselves; a life of self-denial, of common, universal humanity, all men being "members one of another," and of perfect faith. Perhaps the self-denial was bravely concealed in an accepted subjection, but it was not less real. Perhaps the common humanity was military and imperial, yet it also was real. Perhaps, too, the faith was blind and fatalistic, but it was nevertheless faith. Can faith go farther or do more than fatalism? The pagans, then, had become Christians in fact or status, and Christianity came, breathing [p.269] life into the bare fact, into the self-denial, and the broad humanity and the faith, and made these not the mere phases of bare fact or condition, but motives and ideals, manifesting them heroically in a single human life, and so in the form and with the power of a personal discovery of self. Where genuine doubt is the God is always born. IV.