There is a peasant deep down in my soul, or a peasant
soul deep down in me, as well as an exterior, sensitive, cultured
soul. I had to discover that peasant, to realise myself as one of the
poor in spirit to whom is the kingdom.
Christ preached His gospel to the peasant. His is a peasant's gospel,
it seems to me, such a gospel as the peasants of Russia would take to
themselves to-day if Jesus came preaching to them in the way He did to
the common _people_ of the Jews. The cultured would disdain it, until
a new St. Paul interpreted it for them in terms that they could
understand, so giving it a "vogue". Both the peasants and the cultured
would be Christians, but with this difference, that in one case the
seed would be growing on the surface, and in the other from the
depths. The peasant, of course, has no _surface_; he is the good black
earth all ready for the seed.
There is a way for the cultured: it is to discover the peasant down
beneath their culture, the original elemental soil down under the
artificial surface, and to allow the sweetness and richness of
that soil to give expression on that surface. True culture is thus
achieved; that which is not only on the surface but of the depths.
Thereby might every one discover not only the peasant but the pilgrim
soul within; each man living on the world might realise himself as on
the way to Jerusalem.
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