Religion 75
labor, prohibition, divorce there is no unison in theory or
practice among the churches of America. Further, even
in this democracy membership in churches, except in so far
as it has been derived from those who brought their divi-
sions from Britain or Europe into this country, is in gen-
eral the mark of membership also in a certain grade or clique
of society.
But in spite of these obvious differences the Churches
have inculcated in the citizen who belongs to them some
powerful regulative principles. In the first place they have
insisted that morality has a divine sanction, and they have
transmitted the core of that morality from its Christian be-
ginnings. Indeed it was of earlier origin. Christian moral-
ity took into itself the Hebrew conception of a Deity with
an ethical personality whose will was announced in the
Decalogue, and claimed that his new law was fulfilled in the
Sermon on the Mount. As the primitive Church spread
into the Gentile cities it was largely recruited from the
proselytes, who had found in the Jewish synagogues, scat-
tered over the civilized world, a purer faith and a more
satisfying morality than was offered by contemporary re-
ligions. But they brought with them their own best ideals
and practice, which were the generally accepted standard
of western civilization, moulded by the widespread Stoic
doctrine. In principle this ethic was not dissimilar to the
Jewish, being based however on natural law instead of
revelation. But multitudes of the finest people of that old
world discovered in the Christian Church a richer morality
and an intenser hope. By the end of the Apostolic Age the
young Church had almost codified the spiritual teaching of
Jesus, especially as set forth in the Sermon on the Mount,
into their new Law, and gave it a still higher sanction than
the natural law or the Decalogue, thus fixing it indelibly