If it be true Christianity to dive with a passionate charity into the darkest recesses of misery and vice, to irrigate every quarter of the earth with the fertilizing stream of an almost boundless benevolence, and to include all the sections of humanity in the circle of an intense and efficacious sympathy; if it be true Christianity to destroy or weaken the barriers which had separated class from class and nation from nation, to free war from its harshest elements, and to make a consciousness of essential equality and of genuine fraternity dominate over all accidental differences; if it be, above all, true Christianity to cultivate a love of truth for its own sake, a spirit of candour and of tolerance towards those with whom we differ-if these be the marks of a true and healthy Christianity, then never since the days of the Apostles has it been so vigorous as at present. (W. E. H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe)
This passage exemplifies a(n) _____.

Question

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The passage uses a series of "if...then" statements, which are characteristic of a conditional statement, to discuss the nature of true Christianity and its presence in contemporary society.

If It Be True Christianity to Dive with a Passionate