The folk on the east side of the Lake would have welcomed Our Lord if only he had allowed the evil to remain in their midst. People are the same today – hence the preference for a religion that does not interfere with one’s personal liberty by concerning itself with one’s personal sins and one’s private thoughts.

For the principal reason why people refuse to embrace the Christian religion is not the intellectual but the moral; not that they cannot accept its doctrines such as the Resurrection and the Divinity of Christ but that they will not embrace its way of life by following his example and by taking his character as the pattern on which to fashion their own.

For the central fact of the Christian religion is that God was crucified to save us from the evil within us, and that therefore the renunciation of one’s personal sins is the start of one’s life as a Christian; and no amount of heartiness or sentimentality or mental dodging can alter that uncomfortable fact.