The Christianity that can
be taken up and laid down as if it were a watch or a book is
Christianity in name only. The true Christian can no more part from
Christ in mirth than in sorrow. And, after all, what is the essence
of Christianity? What is the kernel of the nut? Surely common
sense and cheerfulness, with unflinching opposition to the
charlatanisms and Pharisaisms of a man's own times. The essence of
Christianity lies neither in dogma, nor yet in abnormally holy life,
but in faith in an unseen world, in doing one's duty, in speaking
the truth, in finding the true life rather in others than in
oneself, and in the certain hope that he who loses his life on these
behalfs finds more than he has lost. What can Agnosticism do
against such Christianity as this? I should be shocked if anything
I had ever written or shall ever write should seem to make light of
these things. I should be shocked also if I did not know how to be
amused with things that amiable people obviously intended to be
amusing.
The reader may need to be reminded that Oropa is among the somewhat
infrequent sanctuaries at which the Madonna and infant Christ are
not white, but black. I shall return to this peculiarity of Oropa
later on, but will leave it for the present. For the general
characteristics of the place I must refer the reader to my book,
"Alps and Sanctuaries.
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