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THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 135
found in the patient bearing of suffering and in abstention
from the pleasures of life the greatest and highest virtue
it was possible for man to strive after. The Christian
doctrine of Faith gave an effective spur to such ideas in
offering to people an expectation of a life after death in
which all injustice is reconciled, virtue receiving its reward
and vice its punishment. The poor and miserable of this
world were afforded the hope of a better and brighter
future in store for them which might console them for the
wretchedness of the present; pity was instilled into the
hearts of the rich, and sinners were filled with fear and
horror and by these means were urged to better things.
This solution of social questions corresponded to the wants
and conditions of civilization of that period and on that
account was bound to obtain for itself general recognition.
The first adherents of Christianity belonged to the circles
of the oppressed and the poor : at a later period it found
believers also amongst those blessed with worldly posses­
sions, the so-called higher classes of society, members of
which, disgusted by the moral depravity of the time, sought
for comfort and edification in the doctrines of the new
Gospel.
So long as the Christian Church consisted of elements
such as these, its purity endured, and the religion of peace
and love remained as conceived of in the mind of its revered
Founder. But when, with its extension and increase, power
and riches were added to it, and from this cause a number
of ambitious and unprincipled adventurers were attracted,
it became the battle-field of human passions and gave rise
frequently to more evil than good.
Christianity concerned itself only with the moral culture
of mankind : to the training of the intellect it remained
indifferent, sometimes even openly hostile. This was
only natural : for in a theory of life which like that held
by the Christian Church saw its goal in the perfect ideal of
a world invisible, and declared the moral improvement of
man to be its principal or only task, no great importance