But the really ragged prophets, the real revolutionists who
held high language in the palaces of kings, they did not confine
themselves to saying, "Onward, Christian soldiers," still less, "Onward,
Futurist soldiers"; what they said to high emperors and to whole empires
was, "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?"
THE DIVINE DETECTIVE
Every person of sound education enjoys detective stories, and there are
even several points on which they have a hearty superiority to most modern
books. A detective story generally describes six living men discussing
how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally
describes six dead men discussing how any man can possibly be alive. But
those who have enjoyed the roman policier must have noted one thing, that
when the murderer is caught he is hardly ever hanged. "That," says
Sherlock Holmes, "is the advantage of being a private detective"; after he
has caught he can set free. The Christian Church can best be defined as
an enormous private detective, correcting that official detective--the
State. This, indeed, is one of the injustices done to historic
Christianity; injustices which arise from looking at complex exceptions
and not at the large and simple fact.
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