CHRISTIANITY

CHRISTIANITY, BELIEF that there is in Christ, as in no other, from first to last a living incarnation, a flesh and blood embodiment, for salvation of the ever-living spirit of the ever-living God and Father of man, and except that by eating His flesh and drinking His blood, that is, except by participating in His divine-human life, or except in His spirit, there is no assurance of life everlasting to any man; but perhaps it has never been defined all round with greater brevity and precision than it is by Ruskin in his "Præterita," under the impression that the time is come when one should say a firm word concerning it: "The total meaning of it," he says, "was, and is, that the God who made earth and its creatures, took, at a certain time upon the earth, the flesh and form of man; in that flesh sustained the pain and died the death of the creature He had made; rose again after death into glorious human life, and when the date of the human race is ended, will return in visible human form, and render to every mail according to his work. Christianity is the belief in, and love of, God thus manifested. Anything less than this," he adds, "the mere acceptance of the sayings of Christ, or assertion of any less than divine power in His Being, may be, for aught I know, enough for virtue, peace, and safety; but they do not make people Christians, or enable them to understand the heart of the simplest believer in the old doctrine."