As Lord David Cecil has said: “The jargon of the…

““As Lord David Cecil has said: “The jargon of the philosophy of progress taught us to think that the savage and primitive state of man is behind us, we still talk of the present ‘return to barbarism.’ But barbarism is not behind us it is beneath us.” And in the same article he observes: “Christianity has compelled the mind of man, not because it is the most cheering view of human existence, but because it is the truest to the facts.” I think this is true; and it seems to me quite disastrous that the idea should have gotten about that Christianity is an other-worldly, unreal, idealistic kind of religion that suggest that if we are good we shall be happy—or if not, it will all be made up to us in the next existence. On the contrary, it is fiercely and even harshly realistic, insisting that the kingdom of heaven can never be attained in this would except by unceasing toil and struggle and vigilance: that, in fact, we cannot be good and cannot be happy, but that there are certain eternal achievements that make even happiness look like trash. It has been said, I think by Berdyaev, that nothing can prevent the human soul from preferring creativeness to happiness. In this lies man’s substantial likeness to the Divine Christ, who in this world suffers and creates continually, being incarnate in the bonds of matter.””

— Dorothy Sayers