I have not the slightest desire to reduce the concrete, ethical, definitely personal religion of Jesus to the ambiguities of philosophical dreamers; the world is going to become more and more consciously and avowedly Christian. But I do not, on the other hand, as a Christian theologian, wish to shut my eyes to great essential likenesses in fundamental faiths and ideals and aspirations, because they are clothed in different garb. The life and teaching of Jesus have worked and are working in the consciousness of men far beyond the limits our feeble faith is inclined to prescribe. There is doubtless much "unconscious Christianity," much "unconscious following of Christ."[74] And we are only following Christ's own counsel, when we refuse to forbid the man who is working a good work in his name, though he follows not with us.[75] Certainly, if we accept the witness of a man's life against the witness of his lips when the witness of his lips is right, we ought to accept the witness of his life against the witness of his lips when the witness of his lips is wrong. With reference to all the preceding inferences from the deepening sense of the like-mindedness of men, it is particularly worthy of note, that this conviction of the essential likeness of men has come into existence side by side with the growing conviction of the moral unripeness of many men, and in spite of that conviction. The careful study of different social classes is forcing upon both the scientific sociologist and the practical social worker, the sense of the ethical immaturity of men. But deeper than this recognition of moral unripeness, deeper than the vision of the sad defectiveness of moral and spiritual ideals and standards, deeper than the clear sense of the immense differences among men as to _what_ is duty, deeper than the differences in even the most important terms used, lies this great conviction of likeness--that all men are moral and spiritual beings, made for relation to one another and to God; that they have ideals that have a wide outlook implicit in them, and have some loyalty to these ideals; that they do have a sense of obligation; that the moral and spiritual life is a reality, a great universal human fact. VI. JUDGMENT ACCORDING TO LIGHT, AND THE MORAL REALITY OF THE FUTURE LIFE