{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_32006/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_32006","id":"gutenberg_32006","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32006","summary":null,"tags":["Apologetics","Apologetics -- History -- 20th century","Atheism","Atheism -- History","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Cults","Ethical culture movement","Non-church-affiliated people","Pantheism","Positivism","Sects","Theism"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n_THE EXPOSITOR'S LIBRARY_\n\n\n\nMODERN SUBSTITUTES\n\nFOR CHRISTIANITY\n\n\n\nBY THE VERY REV.\n\nPEARSON McADAM MUIR D.D.\n\n\nMINISTER OF GLASGOW CATHEDRAL\n\nCHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO THE KING\n\n\n\n\n_Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat_\n\n\n\nHODDER AND STOUGHTON\n\nLONDON -- NEW YORK -- TORONTO\n\n\n\n\nFirst Published . . . December 1909\n\nSecond Edition  . . . October 1912\n\n\n\n\nIN MEMORIAM\n\nS. A. M.\n\nJUNE 3, 1847.  OCTOBER 5, 1871\n\nFEBRUARY 12, 1907\n\n\n\n\n{vii}\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nI                                              PAGE\n\nPOPULAR IMPEACHMENTS OF CHRISTIANITY . . . . .    1\n\n\nII\n\nMORALITY WITHOUT RELIGION  . . . . . . . . . .   31\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE RELIGION OF THE UNIVERSE . . . . . . . . .   63\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE RELIGION OF HUMANITY . . . . . . . . . . .   91\n\n\n{viii}\n\n\nV\n\nTHEISM WITHOUT CHRIST  . . . . . . . . . . . .  125\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE TRIBUTE OF CRITICISM TO CHRIST . . . . . .  171\n\n\nAPPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  219\n\nAUTHORITIES CONSULTED  . . . . . . . . . . . .  257\n\nINDEX  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  265\n\n\n\n\n{2}\n\nI\n\nPOPULAR IMPEACHMENTS OF CHRISTIANITY\n\n\n\n'Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?'--S.\nLUKE vi. 46.\n\n'The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you.'--ROMANS\nii. 24.\n\n'What if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of\nGod without effect?'--ROMANS iii. 3.\n\n'By reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.'--2 S.\nPETER ii. 1.\n\n'So is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the\nignorance of foolish men.'--1 S. PETER ii. 15.\n\n\n\n{3}\n\nI\n\nPOPULAR IMPEACHMENTS OF CHRISTIANITY\n\nThat there is at present a widespread alienation from the Christian\nFaith can hardly be denied.  Sometimes by violent invective, sometimes\nby quiet assumption, the conclusion is conveyed that Christianity is\nobsolete.  Whatever benefits it may have conferred in rude,\nunenlightened ages, it is now outgrown, it is not in keeping with the\nscience and discovery of modern times.  'The good Lord Jesus has had\nHis day,'[1] is murmured in pitying condescension towards those who\nstill suffer themselves to be deceived by the antiquated superstition.\nThe statements in which our forefathers embodied the relations {4}\nbetween God and man are no longer, except by a very few, considered\nadequate; and there is everywhere a demand that those statements should\nbe recast.  Is not all this an irresistible proof that the beliefs of\nthe Church have been abandoned, that the old notions of the Divine\ncare, the spiritual world, the everlasting life, cannot be maintained,\nmust be relegated to the realm of imagination?  The blessings with\nwhich Christianity is commonly credited spring from other sources: the\nevils with which society is infected are its result, direct or indirect.\n\n\nI\n\nSuch accusations, it may occur to us, cannot be made seriously: they\nbear their refutation in the very making; they cannot be propounded\nwith any expectation of being accepted.  This may seem self-evident to\nus: it is not self-evident to multitudes of eager, {5} earnest men.\nThe accusations are persistently made by vigorous writers and\nimpassioned speakers, and are received as incontrovertible\npropositions.  However astonishing, however painful, it may be for us\nto hear, it is well that we should know, what, in largely circulated\nbooks and periodicals, and in mass meetings of the people, is said\nabout the Faith which we profess, and about us who profess it.\n\nListen to some of the terms in which Christianity is impeached.\n\n'I undertake,' says Mr. Winwood Reade, 'I undertake to show that the\ndestruction of Christianity is essential to the interests of\ncivilisation; and also that man will never attain his full powers as a\nmoral being, until he has ceased to believe in a personal God, and in\nthe immortality of the soul.  Christianity must be destroyed.'[2]\n\n'The hostile evidence,' says Mr. Philip {6} Vivian, 'appears to be\noverwhelming.  Christianity cannot be true.  Provided that we see\nthings as they really are, and not as we wish them to be, we cannot but\ncome to this conclusion.  We cannot get away from facts.  Modern\nknowledge forces us to admit that the Christian Faith cannot be\ntrue.'[3]\n\n'I want,' exclaims Mr. Vivian Carey, who has apparently, like Lord\nHerbert of Cherbury, received a revelation to prove that no revelation\nhas been given, 'I want to destroy the fetich of centuries and to\ninstil in its place a life of duty, and of faith in God and man, and I\nbelieve there is a power that has impelled me to attempt this task....\nA system that has produced such results must be essentially bad....  It\nwill not be difficult to create a faith and a religion that will serve\nthe needs of humanity, where Christianity has so deplorably failed.'[4]\n\n{7}\n\n'If Christianity,' argues Mr. Charles Watts, 'were potent for good,\nthat good would have been displayed ere now....  The ties of domestic\naffection, the bonds of the social compact, the political relations of\nrulers and ruled, all have surrendered themselves to its influence.\nYet with all these advantages, it has proved unable to keep pace with a\nprogressive civilisation.'[5]\n\n'In a really humane and civilised nation,' Mr. Robert Blatchford\ncontends, 'there should be and need be no such thing as Ignorance,\nCrime, Idleness, War, Slavery, Hate, Envy, Pride, Greed, Gluttony,\nVice.  But this is not a humane and civilised nation, and never will be\nwhile it accepts Christianity as its religion.  These are my reasons\nfor opposing Christianity.'[6]  'Christianity,' he iterates and\nreiterates, 'is not true.'[7]\n\n'Onward, ye children of the new Faith!' {8} exultantly cries Mr.\nMoncure D. Conway.  'The sun of Christendom hastes to its setting, but\nthe hope never sets of those who know that the sunset here is a sunrise\nthere!'[8]\n\nSuch is the manner in which the downfall of Christianity is now\nproclaimed.  And the impression is prevalent that, though in all ages\nChristianity has been the object of doubt and of scorn, yet never has\nit been rejected with such intensity of hatred as now, never have keen\ncriticism and deep earnestness, wide learning and shrewd mother-wit\nbeen so combined in the attack.  It is not merely the reckless, the\ndissolute, the frivolous who turn away from its reproofs, seeking\nexcuses for their self-indulgence, but it is the thoughtful, the\naustere, the high-principled, the reverent, the unselfish, who are\nengaged in a crusade against all that we, as Christians, hold dear.\n'To the old spirit of mockery, coarse or refined, to the old wrangle of\nargument, {9} also coarse or refined, has succeeded the spirit of\ngrave, measured, determined negation.'[9]  Men whose integrity and\nelevation of character are beyond suspicion, take their places among\nthe rebels against the authority of Christ.  They are fighting, they\nassert, not for the removal of a check to their vices, but for the\nintroduction of a nobler ideal.  In the demolition of Christianity, in\nthe sweeping away of every vestige of religious belief, religious\ncustom, religious hope, they imagine themselves to be conferring\ninestimable benefits upon mankind.  Christianity, in their view, is the\nproduct of delusion and the buttress of all social ills.\n\n\nII\n\nThe contrast which so many are drawing between the present and the past\nis not a little exaggerated.  There have been few periods in which\nChristianity has not been the {10} object of animadversion and attack,\nin which its speedy downfall has not been confidently predicted.  It\nwas two hundred years ago that Dean Swift wrote _An Argument to prove\nthat the Abolishing of Christianity in England may, as things now\nstand, be attended with some Inconveniences, and perhaps not produce\nthose many good effects proposed thereby_': the Dean, with scathing\nsarcasm, ridiculing at once the conventional customs by which\nChristianity was misrepresented, and the supercilious ignorance which\nassumed that it was extinct.[10]  It was about a quarter of a century\nlater that Bishop Butler, in the advertisement to his _Analogy of\nReligion to the Constitution and Course of Nature_, stated, 'It is\ncome, I know not how, to be taken for granted by many persons that\nChristianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry, but that it is\nnow, at length, discovered to be fictitious.  And accordingly they\ntreat it as if, {11} in the present age, this were an agreed point\namong all people of discernment; and nothing remained but to set it up\nas a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were, by way of\nreprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the\nworld.'  And the Bishop drily gave as the aim of the _Analogy_: 'Thus\nmuch, at least, will be here found, not taken for granted but proved,\nthat any reasonable man who will thoroughly consider the matter, may be\nas much assured as he is of his own being, that it is not, however, so\nclear a case that there is nothing in it.'\n\nThe assumption that Christianity is a thing of the past can hardly be\nmore prevalent now than it was then; and the groundlessness of the\nassumption then may lead to the conclusion that the assumption is\nequally groundless now.  Since the days of Butler or of Swift, the\nprogress of Christianity has not ceased: its developments of thought\nand {12} life have been among the most remarkable in its whole career.\nThe exultation over its decay in the twentieth century may possibly be\nfound as premature and as vain as the exultation over its decay in the\neighteenth century, or in any of the centuries which have gone before.\n\n\nIII\n\nThe most popular impeachments of Christianity are mainly these.\n\nIt is a mass of false and superstitious beliefs long exploded.  It is\nthe opponent of progress and inquiry, the discoveries of science having\nbeen made in direct defiance of its teaching and its influence.\n\nIt is the champion of oppression and tyranny.  It aims at keeping the\npoor in ignorance and destitution.  It prostrates itself before the\nrich and seeks the patronage of the great.\n\nIt so insists on people being absorbed in {13} the thought of heaven\nthat it practically precludes them from doing any good on earth.\n\nIt is a system of selfishness, inculcating the dogma that no one need\ncare for anything except the salvation of his own soul.[11]\n\nIt is the foster-mother of all the evil and misery by which society is\ndistressed.  Dishonesty, cruelty, slavery, war, persecution, avarice,\ndrunkenness, vice, would seem to be its natural fruits.\n\n  'How calm and sweet the victories of life,'\n\nshrieked Shelley in one of his early poems.\n\n  'How terrorless the triumph of the grave ...\n  ... but for thy aid\n  Religion! but for thee, prolific fiend,\n  Who peoplest earth with demons, hell with men,\n  And heaven with slaves!\n  Thou taintest all thou look'st upon!'[12]\n\nWhat shall we say to these accusations?  Christians have been credulous\nand superstitious, have argued and acted as if only in {14} the\nabnormal and exceptional could the Divine Presence be found, as if God\nwere a hard Taskmaster and capricious Tyrant.  They have resisted\nprogress and inquiry, blindly refusing to see the light which was\nstreaming upon them.  They have unquestionably been guilty of miserable\npride towards inferiors in wealth or in station, and guilty of\nmiserable sycophancy towards the rich and the powerful.  Christians\nhave too frequently neglected the material well-being of the community,\nhave suffered disgraceful outward conditions to remain without protest,\nhave not striven to shed abroad happiness and brightness in squalid and\nwretched lives.  Christians have been art and part in fostering such\nconditions as wrung from compassionate and indignant hearts the _Song\nof the Shirt_ and the _Cry of the Children_.  Christians have imagined\nthat correctness of belief would make up for falseness of heart, and\nloudness of profession for depravity of {15} practice.  Christians have\nsupposed that in religion all that has to be striven for is the\nsalvation of one's own soul, have even represented the joy of the\nredeemed as heightened by a contemplation of the torments of the lost.\nChristians must bear the responsibility of much of the abounding vice\nwhich they have not earnestly tried to combat where it already exists,\nand which, in various forms, they have introduced into regions where it\nwas unknown before.  Lawlessness and degradation in the slums, fraud\nand dishonesty in trade, gross revelations in the fashionable world;\nbigotry, slander, scandals in the ecclesiastical world; plots, wars,\ntreacheries, assassinations, in the political world: these things ought\nnot so to be.  The fiercest denunciations, the most withering satires,\nwhich unbelievers have employed, do not exceed in intensity of\ncondemnation the judgment which Christian preachers and Christian\nwriters have pronounced.[13]\n\n{16}\n\nIn all ages of the Church the most powerful weapon against Christianity\nhas been the example of Christians.  The Faith which they nominally\nhold has been judged by the lives which they actually lead.[14]\n'Christianity,' said a bishop of the eighteenth century, 'would perhaps\nbe the last religion a wise man would choose, if he were guided by the\nlives of those who profess it.'[15]  But is this to admit that the hope\nof the world lies in renouncing Christianity? that in confining\nourselves to the seen and the temporal, we shall best elevate mankind?\nthat the prospect of annihilation and the absence of wisdom, love, and\nProvidence in the order of the universe constitute the most glorious\ngospel which can be proclaimed?  Nothing of the kind.  It is only\nproved that many Christians are not acting according to their belief,\nthat their practice does not square with their {17} profession.  The\nbelief and the profession are not proved to be wrong and bad.  It would\nbe unreasonable to argue that, because a man who has been vehemently\nsounding the praises of truthfulness is convicted of deliberate lying,\ntherefore truthfulness is shown to be worthless.  It is equally\nunreasonable to identify Christianity with everything to which it is\nmost definitely opposed, to represent it as the enemy of everything\nwhich it was intended to maintain, and then to conclude that\nChristianity is discredited.[16]  As we should argue from the detection\nof a liar, not that lying is right, but that he should return to the\nways of truth, so we should argue from the lives of Christians who live\nin flagrant contradiction to the precepts of our Lord and His Apostles,\nnot that the precepts should be rejected, but that they should be kept;\nnot that Christianity should be abolished, but that it should be obeyed.\n\n{18}\n\nChristians have created prejudice, hatred, against Christianity, but it\nis not Christianity which they have been exhibiting.  We repudiate the\nhideous travesty which they have made, the hideous travesty which is\ncredulously or maliciously accepted by assailants as a correct\nrepresentation.  Christianity is not a religion of darkness and\nsuperstition: it calls to its disciples 'Be children of light: prove\nall things: hold fast that which is good.'  Christianity does not\nsycophantishly court the rich and despise the poor: it tells the\nstories of the Rich Man and Lazarus, and of the Rich Fool, and it\ndeclares 'Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.'  Christianity does not teach\nthat the life which a man leads is of less consequence than the belief\nwhich he professes: it demands, 'Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not\nthe things which I say?'  Christianity is not selfish, is not a system\nwhich inculcates the saving of one's own soul as the first and last of\nduties: {19} 'He that loveth his life shall lose it.  Bear ye one\nanother's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.  By this shall all\nmen know that ye are My disciples if ye have love one to another.'  It\nis surely reasonable to demand that Christianity shall be judged, not\nby its misrepresentations, but by what it is in itself, not as it has\nbeen perverted by bitter enemies, or by false disciples, but as it is\nproclaimed and manifested in its Author and Finisher.\n\n\nIV\n\nIn the face of such tremendous indictments, what is the duty incumbent\non us who profess and call ourselves Christians?  Certainly not that we\nshould abjure the name, but that we should remember what the name\nsignifies.  We ought to consider our ways, to give ourselves to\nself-examination.  There must be something amiss when such hideous\nportraits can be painted with any expectation of their being taken as\ncorrect likenesses.  It is right {20} that we should repel with\nindignation the ludicrous and intolerable caricatures which are\npresented as our belief, the unwarrantable consequences which are\ndeduced from it.  It is right that we should remove misapprehensions\nand refute calumnies; but, above all it is necessary that we should\ntake heed to our own conduct and our own character.  The scandals which\nwe have so much reason to deplore owe their existence, not to\nChristianity, but to the absence of Christianity.  And the very sneers\nwhich greet any departure from rectitude or morality on the part of a\nprofessing Christian prove that such a departure is not a\nmanifestation, but a renunciation of Christianity, that what is\nexpected of Christians is the highest and the best that human nature\ncan produce.\n\n'If,' argues Mr. Blatchford, 'if to praise Christ in words and deny Him\nin deeds be Christianity, then London is a Christian city and England\nis a Christian nation.  For it is {21} very evident that our common\nEnglish ideals are anti-Christian, and that our commercial, foreign,\nand social affairs are run on anti-Christian lines.'[17]  As Mr.\nBlatchford's life is spent in deploring the baseness of 'our common\nEnglish ideals,' and in exposing the iniquity of the methods in which\n'our commercial, foreign, and social affairs' are conducted, the\nlogical inference would seem to be that, as anti-Christian ideals and\nanti-Christian lines have so signally failed, it might be well to give\nChristian ideals and Christian lines a trial.  'In a really humane and\ncivilised nation,' Mr. Blatchford maintains, 'there should be, and\nthere need be, no such thing as Poverty, Ignorance, Crime, Idleness,\nWar, Slavery, Hate, Envy, Pride, Greed, Gluttony, Vice.  But,' he\ncontinues his curious argument, 'this is not a humane and civilised\nnation, and never will be while it accepts Christianity as its\nreligion.  These,' {22} so he adds as an irresistible conclusion,\n'these are my reasons for opposing Christianity.'[18]  Very good\nreasons, if Christianity taught such a creed and encouraged such a\nmorality.  But that any human being should give such a description of\nthe purpose of Christian Faith indicates either that the describer is\nswayed by blindest prejudice or else that no genuine Christian has ever\ncrossed his path.\n\n'What if some do not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of\nGod of none effect?  God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a\nliar.'  Truth continues to be truth, though people who talk much about\nit may be false.  Goodness continues to be goodness, though people who\nsing its praises may be thoroughly depraved.  Generosity does not cease\nto be generosity, though its beauty should be extolled by a miser.\nCourage does not cease to be courage, though its heroism should be\nextolled by a coward.  Temperance {23} is temperance, though we should\nbe assured of the fact by the thick speech of a drunkard.  The virtue\nis admirable, even when those who acknowledge how admirable it is do\nnot practise it.\n\nThat Christianity towers so far above the attainments of its average\ndisciples, nay, above the attainments of its saintliest, is itself a\nkind of evidence of its divine origin.  'When the King of the Tartars,\nwho was become Christian,' says Montaigne, 'designed to come to Lyons\nto kiss the Pope's feet, and there to be an eyewitness of the sanctity\nhe hoped to find in our manners, immediately our good S. Louis sought\nto divert him from his purpose: for fear lest our inordinate way of\nliving should, on the contrary, put him out of conceit with so holy a\nbelief.  And yet it happened quite otherwise to this other, who going\nto Rome to the same end, and there seeing the dissolution of the\nPrelates and people of that time, settled {24} himself so much the more\nfirmly in our religion, considering how great the force and dignity of\nit must necessarily be that could maintain its dignity and splendour\namongst so much corruption and in so vicious hands.'  God's truth\nabides whether men receive it or deny it.  Christ is the Way, the\nTruth, and the Life, though every so-called Christian should become\napostate.  The woes of the world are to be cured by more Christianity,\nnot by less; and on us, in whose hands have been placed its holy\noracles, rests the responsibility of proving its inestimable advantage\nourselves and of conferring it on all mankind.\n\nWherever Christianity has really flourished, untold blessings have been\nthe result.[19]  With all the sad deficiencies and sadder perversions\nby which its course has been chequered, no influence for good can be\ncompared with it in elevating character, in diffusing peace and {25}\ngoodwill, in fitting men to labour and to endure.  The diffusion of the\nspirit of Christianity is a synonym for the diffusion of all that tends\nto the true well-being of the world.  Only as genuine Christianity, the\nChristianity of Christ, prevails, will mankind be morally and\nspiritually lifted into a higher sphere.  Put together the wisest and\nmost ennobling suggestions of those who regard Christianity as obsolete\nand you find that it is virtually Christianity which is delineated.  It\nis in the prevalence of principles and practices which, however they\nmay be designated, are in reality Christian, that the salvation of\nsociety and of individuals will be found.  In the absence of such\nprinciples and practices will be found the secret of ruin, disorder,\ndissolution, and decay.\n\nIt is false Christianity against which the tornado of abuse is really\ndirected.  Where genuine Christianity appears, and is recognised as\ngenuine, it commands respect.  {26} Even the most virulent of recent\nassailants, who seriously considers that, until we get rid of the\n'incubus of the modern Christian religion, our civilisation will so\nsurely decay that we shall become an entirely decadent race,' and who\ncomplacently announces that 'it will not be difficult to create a faith\nand a religion which will serve the needs of humanity where\nChristianity has so signally failed,' even he is graciously pleased to\nallow, 'I have no quarrel with Christianity as a code of morals.  The\nSermon on the Mount, no matter who preached it, is quite sufficient, if\nits teaching was only practised instead of preached, to make this world\nan eminently desirable place in which to live.  My quarrel is concerned\nwith the professional promoters and organisers of religion who have\nmade the very name of Christianity to stink in the nostrils of honest\nmen.'  In other words, it is not to Christianity, but to Christians by\nwhom it is misrepresented, that he is opposed, and he {27} cannot\nrefrain from granting, though surely with transparent inconsistency,\nthat it is by the noble lives of Christians that Christianity has been\nso long preserved.  'It won, with its beauty and sentiment, the\nallegiance of many who were true and manly.  And it is such as these\nwho have raised the Gospel from the slough of infamy.  It is such as\nthese who, in the darkest ages, have perpetuated by the goodness of\ntheir lives the faith that is left to-day.  It is the virtues of\nChristians, not the virtue of Christianity, that keeps the faith\nalive.'[20]  The very opposite is nearer the truth.  The virtues of\nChristians are simply the outcome of the virtue of Christianity: it is\nthe vices of Christians which compose the deepest 'slough of infamy'\ninto which the Gospel has ever been plunged.\n\nBut from all these charges and counter-charges, it would seem to be\nclear that real {28} Christianity compels respect even where it is\nviewed with aversion, that its progress is hindered by nothing so much\nas by the unworthiness of its adherents, that it gains assent by\nnothing so much as by the manifestation of Christian lives.\n\nWill any one venture to deny that the world would be vastly improved\nwere every one in it to be a genuine Christian, animated by Christian\nmotives, doing Christian deeds?  The revolution would be immense,\nindescribable: it would be the end of all evil: it would be the\nestablishment of all good.  No man's hand would be against another, all\nwould strive together for the welfare of the whole, there would be no\ncontention save how to excel in love and in good works.  The human\nimagination cannot depict anything more glorious, more ennobling, than\nthe will of God done on earth as it is done in heaven, and this is what\nwould be if the thoughts of every heart were brought {29} into\ncaptivity to the obedience of Christ.  The most splendid dreams of the\nmost exalted visionaries would be more than fulfilled: everything true\nand lovely and of good report would be ratified and confirmed:\neverything false and vile would be changed and purified, and nothing to\nhurt or destroy or defile would remain.  The fulfilment of that ideal\nis simply the universal prevalence of Christianity, the universal\ntriumph of Christ.\n\nThe systems and tendencies at which we are about to glance owe their\nvitality to the Faith which they attempt to supersede.  They are, in so\nfar as they are good, either tending towards Christianity or borrowing\nfrom it.  The insufficiency of mere material well-being, the\nirresistible association of Religion with Morality, the worship of the\nUniverse, the worship of Humanity, all are signs of the ineradicable\ninstinct of the Unseen and Eternal, of the unquenchable thirst for the\nLiving God; and belief in the Living {30} God finds its noblest\nillustration and confirmation in Him Who said, 'He that hath seen Me\nhath seen the Father,' in Him to whom the searching scrutiny of\ncritical inquirers, as well as the fervid devotion of believers, bears\nso marvellous a witness.  We hope to show not only that the abolition\nof Christianity might 'be attended with sundry inconveniences,' or that\nthe assumption of there being 'nothing in' Christianity is 'not so\nclear a case,' but we hope to show that if, amid present perplexity and\nestrangement, many feel themselves obliged to go back and walk no more\nwith Christ, we, for our part, as we hear His voice of tender reproach,\n'Will ye also go away?' can only, with heartfelt conviction, give the\nanswer, 'Lord, to whom shall we go?  Thou hast the words of eternal\nlife.'\n\n\n\n[1] Tennyson, _In the Children's Hospital_.\n\n[2] _The Martyrdom of Man_.\n\n[3] _The Churches and Modern Thought_.\n\n[4] _Parsons and Pagans_.\n\n[5] _Secularists' Manual_.\n\n[6] _God and my Neighbour_.\n\n[7] _Ibid_.\n\n[8] _Earthward Pilgrimage_.\n\n[9] Dean Church, _Pascal and other Sermons_, p. 348.\n\n[10] Appendix I.\n\n[11] Appendix II.\n\n[12] _Queen Mab_.\n\n[13] Hans Faber, _Das Christentum der Zukunft_.\n\n[14] Appendix.\n\n[15] Sir Leslie Stephen, _English Thought in the Eighteenth Century_,\nvol. i. p. 144\n\n[16] Appendix IV.\n\n[17] _God and my Neighbour_.\n\n[18] _God and my Neighbour_, ch. ix. p. 197.\n\n[19] Appendix V.\n\n[20] _Parsons and Pagans_.\n\n\n\n\n{32}\n\nII\n\nMORALITY WITHOUT RELIGION\n\n\n\n'I am sought of them that asked not for Me: I am found of them that\nsought Me not.'--ISAIAH lxv. 1.\n\n'Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the\nlaw shall be justified.  For when the Gentiles, which have not the law,\ndo by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the\nlaw, are a law unto themselves; which shew the work of the law written\nin their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their\nthoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.'--ROMANS\nii. 13-15.\n\n'Strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without\nGod in the world.'--EPHESIANS ii. 12.\n\n'The acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness.'--TITUS i. 1.\n\n\n\n{33}\n\nII\n\nMORALITY WITHOUT RELIGION\n\nThat Religion and Morality have no necessary connection is a popular\nassumption.  In books, in pamphlets, in magazines, on platforms, in\nordinary conversation, it is loudly proclaimed or quietly insinuated\nthat the morality of the future will be Independent Morality, Morality\nwithout Sanction.  Morality, it is iterated and reiterated, can get on\nquite well without Religion: Religion is a positive hindrance to\nMorality.  This view is, no doubt, extreme.  Perhaps it is only here\nand there in the writings which fall into the hands of most of us, or\nin the circles with which most of us mingle, that the matter is stated\nso bluntly and so plainly.  But in {34} not a few writings of wide\ncirculation, and in whole classes of the community, the statement is\nmade as if beyond contradiction.  Even in works which we are all\nreading, and in companies where we daily find ourselves, the logical\nconclusion of arguments, the natural inference from assumptions, would\nbe simply that extreme position.  There is no use in evading the fact\nthat if some highly popular opinions are accepted, no statement of the\nuselessness of Religion in any form or system can be too extreme.  The\nmere assurance that Religion is a reality, is a benefit, is a\nnecessity, though it may not seem a great deal to establish, though it\nmay leave a host of problems still to solve, would be a gain to many,\nwould sweep away the chief doubts by which they are perplexed.\n\nThere need not, on our part, be any hesitation in declaring, to begin\nwith, that Religion {35} without Morality is worthless.  The attempt to\nkeep them apart, to regard them as independent of each other, has often\nenough been made by nominal champions of Religion.  The upholding of\ncertain views regarding God and His relations to mankind has been\nconsidered sufficient to make up for neglect of the duties incumbent on\nordinary mortals.  The performance of certain rites and ceremonies has\nbeen considered an adequate compensation for the commission of\ndeliberate crimes.  Instances might easily be cited of persons engaged\nin villainous schemes, achieving deeds of dishonesty which will cause\nruin to hundreds of innocent victims, executing plots of fiendish\nrevenge, with little regard for human life, and no regard at all for\ntruth, but exceedingly punctilious in attention to religious\nobservances.  One of the most cold-blooded murderers that ever\ndisgraced the habitable globe was careful not to neglect any act of\ndevotion, and while {36} perpetrating the most nefarious basenesses\nnever failed to write in his diary the most pious sentiments.  That\nkind of religion is worse than nothing, was rightly regarded as\nincreasing the horror and loathsomeness of the monster's life.  In a\nminor degree, we have all seen illustrations of the same incongruity,\nwe may even have detected indications of it in ourselves, the tendency\nto imagine that the more we go to church or frequent the Sacraments or\nread the Bible, we are entitled to latitude in our conduct.  There is\nno tendency against which we need to be more constantly on our guard,\nnone which is more strongly, more terrifically, denounced in the Old\nTestament and in the New, by prophets and apostles, and by the Lord\nJesus Christ Himself.  Unbelievers in Christianity are perfectly right\nwhen they say that Religion without Morality is absolutely worthless.\n\n\n{37}\n\nII\n\nWe may go further.  We may admit, nay, we must vehemently maintain,\nthat Morality without Religion is far better than Religion without\nMorality.  Look at this man who makes no profession of Religion, but\nwho is temperate, honest, self-sacrificing for the public good.  Look\nat that man who made a loud profession, but who was leading a life of\nsecret vice, who was false to the trust reposed in him, who\nappropriated what had been committed to his charge.  Can there be any\ndoubt, we are triumphantly asked, that of these two, the religious is\ninferior to the irreligious?  There can be no doubt whatever, would be\nthe reply of every well-instructed Christian.  Morality without\nReligion is incalculably better than Religion without Morality.  But\nwhat does this prove with regard to Christianity?  It simply proves how\neternally true is the parable {38} of our Lord: 'A certain man had two\nsons, and he came to the first and said, Son, go work to-day in my\nvineyard.  He answered and said, I will not, but afterwards he repented\nand went.  And he came to the second and said likewise.  And he\nanswered and said, I go, sir, and went not.  Whether of them twain did\nthe will of his father?  They say unto Him, The first,' and our Lord\nconfirmed the answer.\n\n\nIII\n\nThat kind of comparison between Religion and Morality is most\nmisleading, for such 'Religion' is not Religion at all.  It may be\nhypocrisy, it may be superstition, it may be self-deception:\nChristianity it is not, and never can be.  The contrast is not really\nbetween Morality and Religion, but between Morality and Immorality,\nFalsehood, Fraud, and Wilful Imposition.  Whatever else the Kingdom of\nGod may be, it is at least {39} Righteousness: where there is no\nRighteousness, there can be no Kingdom of God.  Whatever else Christian\ndoctrine may be, it is at least a doctrine according to godliness, a\nteaching in accordance with the eternal laws of righteousness.  For\npurposes of analysis and convenience, we may distinguish between\nReligion and Morality, and show them working in different spheres, but\nit is utterly erroneous to suppose that they can be actually divorced.\nIn every right and rational representation of the Christian Religion,\nMorality is included and imbedded, otherwise it is only a maimed and\nmutilated Religion which is held out for acceptance.  On the other\nhand, in all true Morality, especially in its highest and purest\nmanifestations, Religion is present.  It is possible to decry Morality.\n'Mere Morality,' in the current acceptation of the phrase, may lack a\ngood deal, may be a phase of self-righteousness, self-interest, cold\ncalculation, {40} a keeping up of appearances before the world, but\nMorality itself is of a higher strain: it is the fulfilment of every\nduty to one's self and to one's neighbour: it implies that each duty is\ndone from the right motive: the purer and loftier it becomes the more\nit encroaches on the religious domain: it is crowned and glorified with\na religious sanction: it is, visible or hidden, conscious or\nunconscious, a doing of the will of God.  Morality, to hold its own,\nmust be 'touched by emotion,' and Morality touched by emotion is\nidentical with Religion.  To admit moral obligation in all its length\nand breadth, and depth and height, is to admit God.[1]\n\n\nIV\n\nA curious illustration of the fact that Morality, to be permanent,\nneeds the inspiration of Religion, that Morality, at its best and\npurest, tends to become Religion, is {41} afforded in such a work as\nDr. Stanton Coit's _National Idealism and a State Church_.  Dr. Coit\nhas for twenty years been engaged in founding ethical societies, and\nhis high and disinterested aims need not be called in question.  But\nthe book is evidence that in order to support the lofty principles\nwhich he so earnestly expounds, he is obliged to call in the aid of\nprinciples which he imagined himself to have discarded.  He begins by\ndenying the Supernatural in every shape and form.  He will have none of\na personal God, or of a personal immortality.  There is no higher being\nthan Man.  All trust must be shifted from supernatural to human\nagencies.  'Combined human foresight, the general will of organised\nsociety, assumes the role of Creative Providence.'  'This is, then, the\npresupposition of all moral judgment in harmony with which I would\nreconstruct the religions of the world: that no crime and no good deed\nthat happens in this world shall {42} ever be traced to any other moral\nagencies than those actually inhabiting living human bodies and\nrecognised by other human beings as fit subjects of human rights and\nprivileges.'  In other words, Morality, Morality alone, Morality\nwithout any sanction from Above, or any hope from Beyond, is the\nall-sufficient strength and ennoblement of man.\n\nBut what is the superstructure which Dr. Stanton Coit proceeds to build\nupon this foundation?  One would naturally expect that Prayer and\nChurches and Sacraments would have no place.  But these are exactly\nwhat he insists on retaining; these will apparently be more important,\nmore necessary, in the future than in the past.  'We should appropriate\nand adapt the materials furnished us by the rites and ceremonies of the\nhistoric Church.  As the woodbird, bent on building her nest, in lieu\nof better materials makes it of leaves and of feathers from her breast,\nso may we use what is familiar, old, {43} and close at hand.  It is all\nours; and the homelike beauty of the Church of the future will be\nenhanced by the ancient materials wrought into its new forms.'  So much\nenhanced, indeed, that most people will be inclined to tolerate the new\nforms simply because of the ancient materials which are allowed to\nremain.  Among the ancient materials which Dr. Coit appropriates or\nadapts, prayer occupies a prominent place.  And he is severe upon\nthose, _e.g._, Comte and Dr. Congreve, who would banish petition from\nthe sphere of worship.  He delights in pointing out that, in despite of\nthemselves, they include requests for personal blessings.  Nor is\nprayer to be a mere aspiration or inarticulate longing of the soul.\n'No mental activity can become definite, coherent, and systematic, and\nremain so, except it be embodied and repeated in words....  A petition\nthat does not, or cannot, or will not, formulate itself in words, and\nlet the lips move to shape them, and the {44} voice to sound them, and\nthe eye to visualise them on the written or printed page, becomes soon\na mere torpor of the mind, or a meaningless movement of blind unrest,\nor a trick of pretending to pray.  Perfected prayer is always spoken.'\n\nTo whom, or to what, this prayer, uttered or unexpressed, is to be\noffered, may be difficult of comprehension.  It is not to God, as we\nhave hitherto employed that sacred name; but Dr. Coit insists that the\nword 'God' shall be retained, and that we have no right to deny to this\nGod the attribute of Personality.  'Any one who worships either a\nconcrete social group or an abstract moral quality may justly protest\nagainst the charge that his God is impersonal: he may insist that it is\neither superpersonal or interpersonal, or both.'  The worship of Nature\nappears to be discouraged, and to be considered as of comparatively\nlittle worth.  'We dare never forget that moral qualities stand to us\nin a {45} different dynamic relation from the grass and the stars and\nthe sea--no effects upon us or upon these will result from petitions\neven of a most righteous man to them.  But no one can deny that prayers\nto Purity, Serenity, Faith, Humanity, England, Man, Woman, to Milton,\nto Jesus, do create a new moral heaven and a new earth for him who\nthirsts after righteousness.' Leaving the name of our Lord out of the\ndiscussion, why should a prayer to Serenity have more moral influence\nthan a prayer to the Sea?  Why should a prayer to the Stars be less\nefficacious than a prayer to Milton, whose soul was like a star and\ndwelt apart?  We have only to invest the stars and the sea with certain\nqualities evolved from our own imagination to make them as worthy of\nworship as either Milton or Serenity.  Dr. Coit is scathing in his\ncriticism of the Positivist prayers, whether of Comte or of Dr.\nCongreve: they are 'screamingly funny': 'the most monstrous {46}\nabsurdity ever perpetrated by a really good and great man.'  The\nepithets are possibly justified; but are they quite inapplicable to one\nwho supposes that an invocation of the Living and Eternal God means no\nmore than an invocation of England, or Faith, or Woman?  It is only\nwhen God has become to us an abstraction that an abstraction can take\nthe place of God.\n\nA manual of services fitted to a nation's present needs is what,\naccording to Dr. Coit, is required to ensure the progress and triumph\nof the ethical movement.  'Until the new idealism possesses its own\nmanual of religious ritual, it cannot communicate effectively its\ndeeper thought and purpose.  The moment, however, it has invented such\na means of communication, it would seem inevitable that a rapid moral\nand intellectual advancement of man must at last take place, equal in\nspeed and in beneficence to the material advancement which followed\n{47} during the last century in the wake of scientific inventions.'\nThe ritual of ethical societies will not outwardly differ much from the\nritual to be found in existing religions.  Its details have yet to be\narranged or 'invented.'  The only things certain are that a book of\nprayers ought to be provided at once, and that in Swinburne's _Songs\nbefore Sunrise_ may be found an 'anthology of prayer suitable for use\nin the Church of Humanity,' prayers 'as sublime and quickening in\nmelody and passion as anything in the Hebrew prophets or the Litany of\nthe Church.'\n\nDr. Coit does not denounce theology as theology, he even insists on\nbeing himself ranked among theologians.  His readers may be surprised\nto learn on what doctrines he dwells with particular fondness.  He\nlaments that belief in the existence and power of the devil should be\nwaning.  'We may not believe in a personal devil, but we must believe\nin a devil who acts very like a person.' {48} He predicts that teachers\nwill more and more teach a doctrine of hell-fire.  Out of kindness they\nwill terrify by presenting the evil effects, indirect and remote, of\nselfish thoughts and dispositions.  'We must frighten people away from\nthe edge of the abyss which begins this side of death.'  Finally,\nthough, of course, the word is not used in the ordinary sense, the\nnecessity of the doctrine of the Incarnation is upheld.  'The\nIncarnation must for ever remain a fundamental conception of religion.\nUntil all men are incarnations of the principle of constructive moral\nbeneficence, and to a higher degree, Jesus will remain pre-eminent; and\nit is quite possible that in proportion as he is approached, gratitude\nto him will increase rather than diminish.'  'Even should any one ever\nin the future transcend him, still it will only be by him and in glad\nacknowledgment of the debt to him.  There never can in the future be a\ndividing of the world into Christianity {49} and not Christianity.  It\nwill only be a new and more Christian Christianity, compatible with\nliberty and reason.'\n\nThus the drift and tendency of this book bring us back, however\nunintentionally, to the Faith of which it appears, at first sight, to\nbe the renunciation.  It establishes irresistibly that Morality, to be\nliving and permanent, must have religious sanction and inspiration,\nthat we need to be delivered from the awful thraldom of evil, that the\nsupreme realities are the things which are unseen; that prayer is the\nlife of the soul; that public worship is a necessity; that in Christ\nthe greatest redemptive power has been embodied, and the purest vision\nof the Eternal has been granted; and that, in its adaptation to human\nneeds, its fostering of human aspirations, its ministering to human\nsorrows, its renewal of human penitence, its consecration of life and\nits hope in death, no Ethical Society yet devised gives any {50}\nsymptom of being able to supplant the Church of Him Who said, 'Come\nunto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you\nrest.'\n\n\nV\n\nNow, from the fact that Morality at its best assumes a religious tinge,\nmerges itself in Religion, we may legitimately infer that, without the\ninspiration of Religion, Morality at its best will not long prevail.[2]\n'Love, friendship,' said Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, 'good nature,\nkindness carried to the height of sincere and devoted affection, will\nalways be the chief pleasures of life, whether Christianity is true or\nfalse; but Christian Charity is not the same as any of these, or all of\nthese put together, and I think that if Christian Theology were\nexploded, Christian Charity would not survive it.'[3]  At present, when\nReligion has pervaded everything with its sacred sanctions, it is easy\nto say that Religion {51} would not be greatly missed were it\ndiscarded, and that Morality would be unaffected.  This is pure\nconjecture.  To test its worth we should need a state of society from\nwhich every vestige of Religion had disappeared.  It will not do to\nretain any of the beliefs or the customs which owe their origin to a\nsense of the Unseen and Eternal, to a sense of any Power above\nourselves, ruling our destinies and instilling into our minds thoughts\nand desires and hopes beyond the visible and the material.  If\nMorality, in the limited acceptation of the term, is sufficient for the\nelevation and welfare of mankind, it is not to be supported by any\nadmixture of Religion: it must prove its power by itself.  Religion\nmust be utterly abolished, its every sanction must be universally\nrejected, its every impulse must have universally ceased before it can\nbe contended with any measure of assurance that the world will be none\nthe worse, may be even the better, for its vanishing.\n\n{52}\n\nIf Religion is a delusion, remember what must be eliminated from our\nconvictions.  There can be no higher tribunal than that of man by which\nour actions can be judged.[4]  A life of outward propriety is the\nutmost that can be demanded of us, if it is only against the wellbeing\nof our neighbour or the promotion of our own happiness that we can\ntransgress.  What has human law to do with our hearts?  What\nlegislation can deal with 'envy, hatred, malice, and all\nuncharitableness,' unless they manifest themselves in outward acts?  A\nbase, unloving, impure, acrimonious, untruthful man may crawl through\nlife, never having been arrested, never having been sentenced to any\nterm of penal servitude.  He can stand erect before all the laws of the\ncountry and say, 'All these have I kept from my youth up.'  And unless\nthere be a higher law than the law of man, unless there be a law\nwritten on our hearts by the Finger of {53} God, unless there be One to\nwhom, above and beyond all earthly appearances, we can mournfully\ndeclare, 'Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned,' nothing more can be\nreasonably demanded.  If there is nothing higher than the visible, it\ncan be only visible results which are of any value.  The giving of\nmoney to help the needy, and the giving of money in order to obtain a\nreputation for generosity, must stand on the same level.  The widow's\nmite will be worth infinitely less than the shekels which come from\nthose who devour widows' houses.  If there be none to search the heart,\nnone save poor frail fellow-mortals to whom we must give account, what\nan incentive to purity of motive and loftiness of aspiration is\nremoved!  But let men talk as they will, there is a conscience in them\nwhich whispers, It does matter whether our hearts as well as our\nactions are right; it does matter whether we have good motives, good\nintentions; there is a scrutiny of hearts, {54} making and to be made\nmore fully yet; there is One before Whom, even though we have not\nbroken the law of the land, we confess with anguish, Against Thee have\nI sinned and done evil in Thy sight: where I appear most\nirreproachable, Thine eye detecteth error: it is not the occasional\ntrespass that I have chiefly to lament, it is the sin that is almost\npart and parcel of my very being, the sin that corrodes even where it\ndoes not glare, the sin that undermines even where it does not crash.\n\n\nVI\n\nThe most thoughtful of those who have lost faith in the Living God and\nin fellowship with Him hereafter, look on this life with a pessimistic\neye.  Without trust in the Unseen and Eternal, life is worthless, an\nidle dream.  With its harassing cares, with its petty vexations, with\nits turbulence and strife, its sorrows, its breaking up of old\nassociations, its quenching the light of our {55} eyes, 'O dreary were\nthis earth, if earth were all!'  On the stage of the world, 'the play\nis the Tragedy Man, the hero the conqueror worm!'\n\nWe cannot but extend the deepest sympathy, the warmest admiration to\nthose who, bereft of belief and of hope, yet cling tenaciously to moral\ngoodness.[5]  'What is to become of us,' asks the pensive Amiel, 'when\neverything leaves us, health, joy, affections, the freshness of\nsensation, memory, capacity for work, when the sun seems to us to have\nlost its warmth, and life is stripped of all its charms? ... There is\nbut one answer, keep close to Duty.  Be what you ought to be; the rest\nis God's affair....  And supposing there were no good and holy God,\nnothing but universal being, the law of the all, an ideal without\nhypostasis or reality, duty would still be the key of the enigma, the\npole star of a wandering {56} humanity.'[6]  Who does not see that it\nis the lingering faith in God which gives strength to this conviction\nand that, were the faith obliterated, the natural conclusion would be\nfor the cultured, 'Vanity of vanities: all is vanity'; and for the\nmultitudes, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'  'I remember\nhow at Cambridge,' says Mr. F. W. H. Myers of George Eliot, 'I walked\nwith her once in the Fellows' Garden of Trinity on an evening of rainy\nMay: and she, stirred somewhat beyond her wont, and taking as her text\nthe three words which have been used so often as the inspiring trumpet\ncalls of men--the words _God, Immortality, Duty_--pronounced with\nterrible earnestness, how inconceivable was the _first_, how\nunbelievable the _second_, and yet how peremptory and absolute the\n_third_.  Never, perhaps, have sterner accents affirmed the sovereignty\nof impersonal and uncompromising Law.  I {57} listened and night fell:\nher grave, majestic countenance turned toward me like a sibyl's in the\ngloom, and it was as though she withdrew from my grasp one by one the\ntwo scrolls of promise, and left me the third scroll only, awful with\ninevitable fates.  And when we stood at length and parted, amid that\ncolumnar circuit of the forest trees, beneath the last twilight of\nstarless skies, I seemed to be gazing, like Titus at Jerusalem, on\nvacant seats and empty halls, on a sanctuary with no presence to hallow\nit, and heaven left lonely of a God.'[7]\n\nWithdraw belief in a God above and in a life beyond, the only reason\nfor obedience to Duty and Morality will be either our own pleasure, the\ndoing what is most agreeable to ourselves; or sympathy, the bearing of\nothers' burdens, in the hope that when we have passed away there may be\nsome on earth who will reap the harvest which we have {58} sown; or\npublic opinion, the views which are prevalent in a particular time in a\nparticular region; and these reasons are hardly likely to produce a\nmorality which will be other than that of self-indulgence, of despair,\nor of conventionality.[8]\n\n'We can get on very well without a religion,' said Sir James Fitzjames\nStephen, 'for though the view of life which Science is opening to us\ngives us nothing to worship, it gives us an infinite number of things\nto enjoy.  The world seems to me a very good world, if it would only\nlast.  It is full of pleasant people and curious things, and I think\nthat most men find no difficulty in turning their minds away from its\ntransient character.'  If it would only last!  But it does not last:\nthose dearer to us than ourselves are snatched away.  Could anything be\nmore selfish, more despicably base than to go about saying, All that is\nof no {59} consequence, so long as I meet with pleasant people and have\nan infinite number of things to enjoy?  It is true that an infinite\nnumber of my fellow-creatures may not be enjoying an infinite number of\nthings, may have trouble in recalling almost anything worthy of the\nname of enjoyment, but why should I be depressed by that?  I find no\ndifficulty in turning away my mind from the misfortunes of others.  'We\ncan get on very well without religion.'  No doubt without it some of us\ncan have agreeable society and a variety of pleasures more or less\nrefined; but this does not prove that religion is no loss.  On the same\nprinciple, we can get on very comfortably without honesty, without\nsobriety, without purity, without generosity.  We can get on very\ncomfortably indeed without anything except without a heart which is\nintent on self-gratification, and which excludes all thought of the\nwants and woes of the world.  'Let us eat and drink, for {60} to-morrow\nwe die,' is the irresistible, though rather inconsistent, conclusion of\nthat sublime austerity which so indignantly repudiates the merest hint\nof reward or hope within the veil, and which so sensitively shrinks\nfrom the mercenariness of the Religion of the Cross.\n\n  'The wages of sin is death:\n      if the wages of Virtue be dust,\n  Would she have heart to endure for the life\n      of the worm and the fly!'[9]\n\n\nWhat are the facts?  What is the growing tendency where men think\nthemselves strong enough to do without religious beliefs, when they\nhave been proclaiming that the suppression of Religion will be the\nexaltation of a purer Morality?  There are plenty of indications that\nthe laws of Morality are found to be as irksome as the dictates of\nReligion.  The first step is to cry out for a higher Morality, to\ncensure the Morality of {61} the New Testament as imperfect and\ninadequate, as selfish and visionary.  The next step is to question the\nrestraints of Morality, to clamour for liberty in regard to matters on\nwhich the general voice of mankind has from the beginning given no\nuncertain verdict.  The last step is to declare that Morality is\nvariable and conventional, a mere arbitrary arrangement, which can be\ndispensed with by the emancipated soul.  The literature which assumes\nthat Religion is obsolete does not, as a rule, suffer itself to be much\nhampered by the fetters of Morality.  The non-Religion of the Future is\nwhat, we are confidently told, increasing knowledge of the laws of\nSociology will of necessity bring about.  Should that day ever dawn, or\nrather let us say, should that night ever envelop us, it will mean the\ndiffusion of non-Morality such as the world has never known.[10]\n\n\n\n[1] Appendix.\n\n[2] Appendix VI.\n\n[3] _Nineteenth Century_, June 1884.\n\n[4] Appendix VII.\n\n[5] Appendix VIII.\n\n[6] _Journal Intime_, ii.\n\n[7] _Modern Essays_.\n\n[8] Appendix IX.\n\n[9] Tennyson, _Wages_.\n\n[10] Appendix X.\n\n\n\n\n{64}\n\nIII\n\nTHE RELIGION OF THE UNIVERSE\n\n\n\n'Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy\npresence.'--PSALM cxxxix. 7.\n\n'Do I not fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.'--JEREMIAH xxiii. 24.\n\n'The heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee.'--1 KINGS viii.\n27.\n\n'In Him we live, and move, and have our being.'--ACTS xvii. 28.\n\n'One God and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in\nyou all.'--EPHESIANS iv. 6.\n\n'Of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things: to Whom be glory\nfor ever.  Amen.'--ROMANS xi. 36.\n\n'That God may be all in all.'--1 CORINTHIANS xv. 28.\n\n\n\n{65}\n\nIII\n\nTHE RELIGION OF THE UNIVERSE\n\nAmong proposed substitutes for Christianity, none occupies a more\nprominent place than Pantheism, the identity of God and the universe.\n'Pantheism,' says Haeckel, 'is the world system of the modern\nscientist.'[1]  Pantheism, or the Religion of the Universe, is, in one\naspect, a protest against Anthropomorphism, the making of God in the\nimage of man.  It is in supposing God to be altogether such as we are,\nto be swayed by the same motives, to be actuated by the same passions\nas we are, that the most deadly errors have arisen.  Robert Browning,\nin _Caliban upon Setebos_, represents a half-brutal {66} being who\nlives in a cave speculating upon the government of the world, wondering\nwhy it came to be made, and what could be the purpose of the Creator in\nmaking it.  Every motive that could sway the savage mind is in turn\ndiscussed: pleasure, restlessness, jealousy, cruelty, sport.  'Because\nI, Caliban,' such is the process of his reasoning, 'delight in\ntormenting defenceless animals, or would crush any one that interfered\nwith my comfort, or do things because my taskmaster obliges me to do\nthem, so must it be with Him Who made the world.'  With great\ngrotesqueness, but with marvellous power, the degraded monster argues\nas to the reasons which could have prompted the Unseen Ruler to frame\nthe earth and its inhabitants.  Everything that he attributes to God is\nin keeping with his own base nature.  What is the explanation of the\nhorrors which have been perpetrated in the Name of God?  The sacrifice\nof human {67} beings, of vanquished enemies, or of the nearest and the\ndearest, the agonies of self-torture, did not these originate in the\ntransference to the Invisible God of the emotions and principles by\nwhich men were guiding their own lives?  They had no notion of\nforbearance and forgiveness and patience, therefore they did not think\nthat there could be forgiveness with God.  They were to be turned aside\nfrom their fierce, revengeful purposes by bribes and by the protracted\nsufferings of their foes, therefore they thought that God might be\nbribed by gifts or propitiated by pains.  What they were on earth,\ndelighting in bloodshed and conquest and revelry, that, they supposed,\nmust be the Being or the Beings who ruled in the world unseen.\n\n\nI\n\nGod is not as man is, this was a lesson which ancient prophets\nstruggled to teach.  He is not a man that He should lie, or a son {68}\nof man that He should repent.  He is not to be conceived as influenced\nby the petty hopes and fears and jealousies which influence the mass of\nmortals.  'My thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither are your ways\nmy ways, saith the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth,\nso are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your\nthoughts.'  He is infinitely exalted above the best and wisest of His\nchildren and to see in Him only their likeness is not to see Him\naright.  It is not to be denied that the writers of the Old Testament\nemploy anthropomorphic language to vivify the justice and goodness of\nthe Eternal.  They speak of His Eyes and of His Face, of His Hands and\nof His Arm and of His Voice.  They speak of Him walking in the Garden\nand smelling a sweet savour.  They speak of Him repenting and being\njealous and coming down to see what is done on earth.  Such figures,\nhowever, as a rule, have a force {69} and an appropriateness which\nnever can become obsolete or out of date.  They even heighten the\nMajesty and Spotless Holiness of God.  They are felt to be, at most,\nwords struggling to express what no words can ever convey: they are the\nreadiest means of impressing on the dull understanding of men their\npractical duty, of letting them know with what purity and righteousness\nthey have to do.  It is not in such figures that any harm can ever lie.\nThe error of taking literally such phrases as 'Hands' or 'Arm' or\n'Voice' is not very prevalent, but the error of framing God after our\nmoral image is not distant or imaginary.  There is a mode of speaking\nabout Divine Purposes and Divine Motives which must jar on those who\nhave begun to discern the Divine Majesty, to whom the thought of the\nAll-Embracing Presence has become a reality.\n\n\n{70}\n\nII\n\nThe representation of the Almighty and Eternal as one of ourselves, as\nanimated by the lowest passions and paltriest prejudices of mankind, as\na 'magnified and non-natural' human being, is recognised as ludicrously\ninadequate and terribly distorted.  The representation of the Creator\nas 'sitting idle at the outside of the Universe and seeing it go,' as\nhaving brought it into being and afterwards left it to itself, as\nmingling no more in its events and evolution, is utterly discarded.  It\nis, however, to such representations that the assaults of modern\ncritics are directed, and in the overthrow of such representations it\nis imagined that Christianity itself is overthrown.  The assailants\nmaintain that Christianity in attributing Personality to God makes Him\nin the image of man, and separates Him from the Universe.  But what is\nmeant by Personality?  It does not mean a {71} being no higher than\nman, with the limitations and imperfections of man.[2]  Mr. Herbert\nSpencer, who would not ascribe Personality to God, yet affirmed that\nthe choice was not between Personality and something lower than\nPersonality, but between Personality and something higher.  'Is it not\njust possible that there is a mode of being as much transcending\nIntelligence and Will as these transcend mechanical motion?'[3]  The\ndescription of Personality given by the author of the _Riddle of the\nUniverse_ would be repudiated by every educated Christian.  'The\nmonistic idea of God, which alone is compatible with our present\nknowledge of nature, recognises the divine spirit in all things.  It\ncan never recognise in God a \"personal being,\" or, in other words, an\nindividual of limited extension in space, or even of human form.  God\nis everywhere.'[4]  That conclusion,--we {72} are not concerned with\nthe steps by which the conclusion is reached,--does not strike one as a\nmodern discovery.  In what authoritative statement of Christian\ndoctrine God is defined as _not_ being everywhere, or 'an individual of\nlimited extension in space, or even of human form,' we are unaware.\nThere is apparent misunderstanding in the supposition that we have to\ntake our choice between God as entirely severed from the world, and God\nexisting in the world.  God, it is asserted in current phraseology,\ncannot be both Immanent and Transcendent; He cannot be both in the\nworld and above it.  'In Theism,' so Haeckel draws out the comparison,\n'God is opposed to Nature as an extra-mundane being, as creating and\nsustaining the world, and acting upon it from without, while in\nPantheism God, as an intra-mundane being, is everywhere identical with\nNature itself, and is operative within the world as \"force\" or {73}\n\"energy.\"'[5]  If there is no juggling with words here, it can hardly\nbe juggling with words to point out that so far as 'space' goes, an\nintra-mundane being, rather than an extra-mundane, is likely to be\n'limited in extension.'\n\n\nIII\n\nThe imagination that the Christian God is a Personality like ourselves,\nand is to be found only above and beyond the world, finds perhaps its\nstrangest expression in some of the writings of that ardent lover of\nNature, the late Richard Jefferies.  'I cease,' so he writes in _The\nStory of my Heart_, 'to look for traces of the Deity in life, because\nno such traces exist.  I conclude that there is an existence, a\nsomething higher than soul, higher, better, and more perfect than\ndeity.  Earnestly I pray to find this something better than a god.\nThere is something superior, higher, more good.  For this I search,\nlabour, {74} think, and pray....  With the whole force of my existence,\nwith the whole force of my thought, mind, and soul, I pray to find this\nHighest Soul, this greater than deity, this better than God.  Give me\nto live the deepest soul-life now and always with this soul.  For want\nof words I write soul, but I think it is something beyond soul.'  Could\nanything be more pathetic or, at the same time, more self-refuting?\nHow can anything be greater than the Infinite, more enduring than the\nEternal, better than the All-Pure and All-Perfect?  It could be only\nthe God of unenlightened, unchristian teaching, Whom he rejected.  The\nGod Whom he sought must be not only in but beyond and above all created\nor developed things.  It was, indeed, the Higher than the Highest that\nhe worshipped.  It was for God, for the Living God, that his eager soul\nwas athirst, and it is in God, the Living God, that his eager soul is\nnow, we humbly trust, for ever satisfied.\n\n\n{75}\n\nIV\n\n'The heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Him.'  'Whither shall\nI go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?'  'My\nthoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways saith the\nLord.'  'In Him we live and move and have our being.'  'Of Him and\nthrough Him and to Him are all things, to Whom be glory for ever.\nAmen.'[6]  Now it cannot be denied that some who have striven to\nexpress after this fashion the unutterable majesty and the universal\npresence of God, who have endeavoured to demonstrate that God is in all\nthings, and that all things are in God, have at times failed to make\ntheir meaning plain.  Either from the obscurity of their own language,\nor from the obtuseness of their readers, they have been considered\nAtheists.  While vehemently asserting that God is {76} everywhere, they\nhave been taken to mean that God is nowhere.  The actual conclusion to\nbe drawn from the treatises of Spinoza, the reputed founder of modern\nPantheism, is still undecided.  But no one now would brand him with the\nname of Atheist.  He was excommunicated by Jews and denounced by\nChristians, yet there are many who think that his aim, his not\nunsuccessful aim, was to establish faith in the Unseen and Eternal on a\nbasis which could not be shaken.  So far from denying God, he was,\naccording to one of the greatest of German theologians, 'a\nGod-intoxicated man.'  'Offer up reverently with me a lock of hair to\nthe manes of the holy, repudiated Spinoza!  The high world-spirit\npenetrated him: the Infinite was his beginning and his end: the\nUniverse his only and eternal love....  He was full of religion and of\nthe Holy Spirit, and therefore he stands alone and unreachable, master\nin his art above the profane multitude, {77} without disciples and\nwithout citizenship.'[7]  Dean Stanley went so far as to say that 'a\nclearer glimpse into the nature of the Deity was granted to Spinoza,\nthe excommunicated Jew of Amsterdam, than to the combined forces of\nEpiscopacy and Presbytery in the Synod of Dordrecht.'[8]  Such a\njudgment is rather hard upon the divines who took part in that\ncelebrated Synod, but at any rate it indicates that the great\nphilosopher, misunderstood and persecuted, was elaborating in his own\nway, this great truth, 'In him we live and move and have our being.'\n'Of Him, and through Him are all things.'\n\n\nV\n\nIn their loftiest moments, contemplating the marvels of the heavens\nabove and the earth beneath, devout souls have, wherever they looked,\nbeen confronted with the Vision of God.  'What do I see in all {78}\nNature?' said Fenelon, 'God.  God is everything, and God alone.'\n'Everything,' said William Law, 'that is in being is either God or\nNature or Creature: and everything that is not God is only a\nmanifestation of God; for as there is nothing, neither Nature nor\nCreature, but what must have its being in and from God, so everything\nis and must be according to its nature more or less a manifestation of\nGod.'\n\nIt is the thought which has inspired poets of the most diverse schools,\nwhich has been their most marvellous illumination and ecstasy.\n\nNow it is Alexander Pope:\n\n  All are but parts of one stupendous whole\n  Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.\n\n\nNow it is William Cowper:\n\n        There lives and works\n  A soul in all things and that soul is God.\n\n\nNow it is James Thomson of _The Seasons_:\n\n  These, as they change, Almighty Father! these\n  Are but the varied God.  The rolling year\n  Is full of Thee.\n\n{79}\n\nNow it is William Wordsworth:\n\n            I have felt\n  A Presence that disturbs me with the joy\n  Of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime\n  Of something far more deeply interfused,\n  Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,\n  And the round ocean and the living air,\n  And the blue sky, and in the mind of man\n  A motion and a spirit which impels\n  All thinking things, all objects of all thought,\n  And rolls through all things.\n\n\nNow it is Lord Tennyson:\n\n  The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains,\n  Are not these, O Soul, the vision of Him Who reigns?\n      *      *      *      *      *\n  Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet.\n  Closer is He than breathing and nearer than hands or feet.\n\n\nCertainly, we may say, nothing atheistic in utterances like these: they\nare the utterances of lofty thought, of profound piety, of soaring\naspiration, and of childlike faith.  They have a pantheistic tinge:\nwhat is there to dread in Pantheism?  Not much in {80} Pantheism of\nthat kind: would there were more of it!  But it will be observable\nthat, in the instances cited, though God is in Nature and manifesting\nHimself through it, there is a clear distinction between Nature and\nGod.  It may seem as if it were merely the sky, the sun, the stars, the\nocean, that are apostrophised: in reality it is a Life, a Spirit, a\nPower not themselves, in which they live and move and have their being:\nnot to them, but to That, are the prayers addressed.  And, we venture\nto think, it is scarcely ever otherwise: scarcely ever is the Visible\nalone invoked: identify God as men will with the material universe, or\neven with the force and energy with which the material universe is\npervaded, when they enter into communion with it, in spite of\nthemselves they endow it with the Life and the Will and the Purpose\nwhich they have in theory rejected.  But the absolute identification of\nGod and the Universe, the assumption that above and {81} beneath and\nthrough all there is no conscious Righteousness and Wisdom and Love\noverruling and directing, _that_ is a belief to be resisted, a belief\nwhich enervates character and enfeebles hope.[9]  'Whoever says in his\nheart that God is _no more_ than Nature: whoever does not provide\n_behind the veil of creation_ an infinite reserve of thought and beauty\nand holy love, that might fling aside this universe and take another,\nas a vesture changing the heavens and they are changed, ... is bereft\nof the essence of the Christian Faith, and is removed by only\naccidental and precarious distinctions from the atheistic worship of\nmere \"natural laws.\"'[10]  'In our worship we have to do, not so much\nwith His finite expression in created things as with His own free self\nand inner reality ... all _religion_ consists in _passing Nature by_,\nin order to enter into direct personal relation {82} with Him, soul to\nsoul.  It is _not_ Pantheism to merge all the life of the physical\nuniverse in Him, and leave Him as the inner and sustaining Power of it\nall.  It is Pantheism to rest in this conception: to merge Him in the\nuniverse and see Him only there: and not rather to dwell with Him as\nthe Living, Holy, Sympathising Will, on Whose free affection the\ncluster of created things lies and plays, as the spray upon the\nocean.'[11]\n\n\nVI\n\nGod is _not_ as we are, and yet He _is_ as we are.  God is not made in\nthe image of man, but man is made in the image of God.  It is through\nhuman goodness and human purity and human love that we attain our best\nconceptions of the Divine Goodness and Purity and Love.  'If ye being\nevil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will\nyour Heavenly Father {83} give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?'\nPicture to yourself what is highest and best in the human relationship\nof father and child: be sure that the Heavenly Father will not fall\nbelow, but will infinitely transcend, that standard.  All the justice\nand goodness which we have seen on earth are the feebler reflection of\nHis.  It is by learning that the utmost height of human goodness is but\na little way towards Him that we learn to think of Him at all aright.\nBut the justice and the love by which he acts are different only in\ndegree, and not in kind, from ours.  When we think of God as altogether\nsuch as we are, we degrade Him, we have before us the image of the\nimperfect; when we try to think of Him under no image and to discard\nall figures, He vanishes into unreality and nothingness, but when we\nsee Him in Christ, we have before us that which we can grasp and\nunderstand, and that in which there is no imperfection.\n\n{84}\n\nIf there is no God but the universe, we have a universe without a God.\nWorship is meaningless, Faith is a mockery, Hope is a delusion.  If the\nuniverse is God, all things in the universe are of necessity Divine.\nThe distinction between right and wrong is broken down.  In a sense\nvery different from that in which the phrase was originally employed,\n'Whatever is, is right.'  Nothing can legitimately be stigmatised as\nwrong, for there is nothing which is not God.  'If all that is is God,\nthen truth and error are equally manifestations of God.  If God is all\nthat is, then we hear His voice as much in the promptings to sin as in\nthe solemn imperatives of Conscience.  This is the inexorable logic of\nPantheism, however disguised.'[12]  'I know,' says Mr. Frederic\nHarrison, 'what is meant by the Power and Goodness of an Almighty\nCreator.  I know what is meant by the genius and patience {85} and\nsympathy of man.  But what is the All, or the Good, or the True, or the\nBeautiful?  ... The \"All\" is not good nor beautiful: it is full of\nhorror and ruin....  There lies this original blot on every form of\nphilosophic Pantheism when tried as the basis of a religion or as the\nroot-idea of our lives, that it jumbles up the moral, the unmoral, the\nnon-human and the anti-human world, the animated and the inanimate,\ncruelty, filth, horror, waste, death, virtue and vice, suffering and\nvictory, sympathy and insensibility.'[13]  Where these distinctions are\nlost, where this confusion exists, what logically must be the\nconsequence?  Honesty and dishonesty, truth and falsehood, purity and\nimpurity, kindness and brutality, are put upon a level, are alike\nmanifestations of the One or the All.\n\nIt is said that in our day the sense of sin has grown weak, that men\nare not troubled {86} by it as once they were.  There is a morbid,\nscrupulous remorsefulness for wrong-doing, a desponding conviction that\nrepentance and restoration are impossible, which may well be put away.\nBut that sin should be no longer held to be sin, that evil should be\nwrought and the worker experience no pang of shame, would surely\nindicate moral declension and decay.  Were the time to come when,\nuniversally, mankind should commit those actions and cherish those\npassions which, through all ages in all lands, have gone by the name of\nsin, should become so heedless to the voice of conscience, that\nconscience should cease to speak, the time would have come when men,\nbeing past feeling, would devote themselves with greediness to anything\nthat was vile, so long as it was pleasant, the bonds of society would\nbe loosened and destruction would be at hand.  The Religion of the\nUniverse ignores the facts of life, the sorrow, the struggle, {87} the\ndepravity, the need of redemption.  Fortunately, human beings in\ngeneral are still inclined to mourn because of imperfection or of\nbaseness: still they are inclined at times to cry out, 'Who shall\ndeliver me from the body of this death?' and still they have the\nopportunity of joyfully or humbly saying, 'I thank God through Jesus\nChrist our Lord.'\n\n'And now at this day,' listen to the ungrudging admission of perhaps\nthe most earnest English apostle of Pantheism, Mr. Allanson Picton: 'We\nof all schools, whether orthodox or heterodox so-called, whether\nbelievers or unbelievers in supernatural revelation, all who seek the\nrevival of religion, the exaltation of morality, the redemption of man,\ndraw, most of us, our direct impulse, and all of us, directly or\nindirectly, our ideals from the speaking vision of the Christ.  Such a\nclaim is justified, not merely by the spiritual power still remaining\nin the Church, {88} but almost as much by the tributes paid, and the\nuses of the Gospel teaching made in the writings of the most\ndistinguished among rationalists....  Such writers have felt that\nsomehow Jesus still holds, and ought to hold, the heart of humanity\nunder His beneficial sway.  Excluding the partial, imperfect and\ntemporary ideas of Nature, spirits, hell, and heaven, which the\nGalilean held with singular lightness for a man of His time, they have\nacquiesced in and even echoed His invitation to the weary and heavy\nladen, to take His yoke upon them and learn of Him.  And that means to\nlive up to His Gospel of the nothingness of self, and of unreserved\nsacrifice to the Eternal All in All.'[14]  If such is the conclusion of\nRationalism and of Pantheism, how much more ought it to be the\nconclusion of Christianity.  The imagination of a God confined to times\nand places, visiting the world only occasionally, {89} manifesting\nHimself in the past and not in the present, ought to be as foreign to\nthe Christian Church as to any Rationalist or Pantheist.  Be it ours to\nshow that we believe in God Who filleth all things with His presence,\nWho is from Everlasting to Everlasting, that to us there is but one God\nthe Father, by Whom are all things and we in Him, and one Lord, Jesus\nChrist, by Whom are all things and we by Him, that God has identified\nHimself with us in Jesus Christ, His Son.  Be it ours to lose ourselves\nin Him.  For, after all our questionings as to the government of the\nworld, as to abounding misery and degradation, as to what lies beyond\nthe veil for ourselves and for others, this is our hope and our\nconfidence: 'God hath concluded all in unbelief that He might have\nmercy upon all.  O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and\nknowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past\nfinding out.  For who hath {90} known the mind of the Lord? or who hath\nbeen His counsellor? or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be\nrecompensed unto Him again?  For of Him and through Him and to Him are\nall things: to Whom be glory for ever.  Amen.'\n\n\n\n[1] _Riddle of the Universe_.\n\n[2] Appendix XI.\n\n[3] _First Principles_.\n\n[4] _Confession of Faith of a Man of Science_.\n\n[5] _Riddle of the Universe_.\n\n[6] Appendix XII.\n\n[7] Schleiermacher.\n\n[8] _St. Andrews Addresses_.\n\n[9] Appendix XIII.\n\n[10] Martineau, _Hours of Thought_, ii. p. 110.\n\n[11] Martineau, _Hours of Thought_, ii. p. 114.\n\n[12] _Faith of a Christian_.\n\n[13] _Creed of a Layman_, p. 203.\n\n[14] _Religion of the Universe_.\n\n\n\n\n{92}\n\nIV\n\nTHE RELIGION OF HUMANITY\n\n\n\n'And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our\nlikeness.'--GENESIS i. 26.\n\n'When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the\nstars which Thou hast ordained, what is man that Thou art mindful of\nhim? and the son of man that Thou visitest him?  For Thou hast made him\na little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and\nhonour.'--PSALM viii. 3-5\n\nThou hast put all things in subjection under His feet.  For in that He\nput all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that is not put under\nHim.  But now we see not yet all things put under Him.  But we see\nJesus Who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of\ndeath crowned with glory and honour, that He by the grace of God should\ntaste death for every man.'--HEBREWS ii. 8, 9.\n\n\n\n{93}\n\nIV\n\nTHE RELIGION OF HUMANITY\n\nThe position which Religion, and especially the Christian Religion,\nassigns to man, to man as he ought to be, is very high.  He is made in\nthe image of God, he is a little lower than the angels, a little lower\nthan God, he is a partaker of the Divine Nature.  But as the corruption\nof the best is the worst, there is nothing in the whole creation more\nmiserable, more loathsome, than man as he has forgotten his high estate\nand plunged himself into degradation.  'What man has made of man,' is\nthe saddest, most deplorable sight in all the world.  Amid the awful\nsplendour of the winning loveliness of Nature, 'only man is vile.'\nThat is the terrible {94} verdict which may be pronounced upon him\nrenouncing his birthright, surrendering himself to the powers which he\nwas meant to keep in subjection.  It is not the verdict to be\npronounced on Man as Man, the child of the highest and the heir of all\nthe ages.  The appeal of Religion, the appeal of Christianity above\nall, has continually been, O sons of men, sully not your glorious\ngarments, cast not away your glorious crown.\n\n\nI\n\nIt is irreligion, it is unbelief, which comes and says, Lay aside these\nfantastic notions as to your greatness: you are the creatures of a day:\nyou belong, like other animals, to the world of sense, and you pass\naway along with them: a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast.  Banish\nyour delusive hopes; confine yourselves to reality; waste not your time\nin the pursuit of phantoms: make the best of the world in {95} which\nyou are: seize its pleasures: shut your eyes to its sorrows: enjoy\nyourselves in the present and let the future take care of itself:\nfollow the devices and desires of your own hearts in the comfortable\nassurance that there is no judgment to which you can be brought, save\nthat which exists in the realm of imagination.\n\nListening to such whispers, obeying such suggestions, walking in such\ncourses, the spectacle which man presents can be viewed only with\ncompassion, with horror, or with disdain.  His ideals, his aspirations,\nhis self-sacrifices are only so many phases of self-deception.  The\nnatural conclusion to be drawn from denying the spiritual origin and\neternal prospects of man must be that he is of no more account than any\nof the transitory beings around him, that, if he has any superiority\nover them, it is only the superiority of a skill with which he can make\nthem the instruments of {96} his purposes.  With no glimpses of a\nhigher world, with no inspirations from a Spirit nobler than his own,\nhe can hardly regard the achievements of heroism as other than acts of\nmadness, he can be fired with no desire to emulate them, he cannot well\nbe trusted to perform ordinary acts of honesty and morality, let alone\nextraordinary acts of generosity and magnanimity, should they come in\ncollision with his objects and ambitions.\n\n      Unless above himself he can\n  Erect himself, how mean a thing is Man!\n\nDeny his divine fellowship, extirpate his heavenly anticipations, and\nit might seem as if no race on earth would be so poor as do him\nreverence.\n\n\nII\n\nOne thing is assumed by not a few, the absurdity of the Almighty caring\nfor such a race, and therefore the impossibility of the Incarnation.\n'Which,' asks Mr. Frederic {97} Harrison, 'is the more deliriously\nextravagant, the disproportionate condescension of the Infinite\nCreator, or the self-complacent arrogance with which the created mite\naccepts, or rather dreams of, such an inconceivable prerogative?  His\nplanet is one of the least of all the myriad units in a boundless\nInfinity; in the countless aeons of time he is one of the latest and the\nbriefest; of the whole living world on the planet, since the ages of\nthe primitive protozoon, man is but an infinitesimal fraction.  In all\nthis enormous array of life, in all these aeons, was there never\nanything living which specially interested the Creator, nothing that\nthe Redeemer could care for, or die for?  If so, what a waste creation\nmust have been! ...  Why was all this tremendous tragedy, great enough\nto convulse the Universe, confined to the minutest speck of it, for the\nbenefit of one puny and very late-born race?'[1]\n\n{98}\n\nBut is it not the fact that along with the discovery of Man's utter\ninsignificance, there has come the discovery of powers and faculties\nunknown and unsuspected, so that more than ever all things are in\nsubjection to him, his dominion has become wider, his throne more\nfirmly established?  Is it not the fact that the whole realm of Nature\nis explored by him, is compelled to minister to his wants or to unfold\nits treasures of knowledge?  Is it not the fact that more than ever it\ncan be said:\n\n    The lightning is his slave: heaven's utmost deep\n    Gives up her stars, and, like a flock of sheep,\n  They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on.\n    The tempest is his steed: he strides the air.\n    And the Abyss shouts from her depth laid bare\n  'Heaven, hast thou secrets?  Man unveils me: I have none.'[2]\n\nIs it not the fact that deposed from his position of proud pre-eminence\nas centre of the universe, Man has by his labours and his ingenuity\nreasserted his high prerogative {99} to be lord of the creation?  The\nprinting-press, the railway, the telegraph, how have inventions like\nthese invested him with an influence which he did not possess before!\nAnd is it not the fact that when most conscious of our nothingness\nbefore the immensities around us, when humbled and prostrate before the\nInfinite of which we have caught a transitory glimpse, we are also most\nconscious of our high destiny, we are lifted above the earthly to the\nheavenly, we discern that, though we cannot claim a moment, yet\nEternity is ours?  'What, then, is Man!  What, then, is Man!  He\nendures but an hour and is crushed before the moth.  Yet in the being\nand in the working of a faithful man is there already (as all faith,\nfrom the beginning, gives assurance) a something that pertains, not to\nthis wild death element of Time; that triumphs over Time, and _is_, and\nwill be, when Time shall be no more.'[3] {100} Man's place in the\nuniverse may, according to Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, be nearer the\ncentre of things than has so commonly come to be accepted.  Modern\ndiscovery, he maintains, has thrown light on the interesting problem of\nour relation to the Universe; and even though such discovery may have\nno bearing upon theology or religion, yet, he thinks, it proves that\nour position in the material creation is special and probably unique,\nand that the view is justified which holds that 'the supreme end and\npurpose of this vast universe was the production and development of the\nliving soul in the perishable body of man.'  And another, a convinced\nand ardent disciple of Evolution, the late Professor John Fiske, argues\nthat, 'not the production of any higher creature, but the perfecting of\nhumanity is to be the glorious consummation of Nature's long and\ntedious work....  Man seems now, much more clearly than ever, the chief\namong God's {101} creatures....  The whole creation has been groaning\nand travailing together in order to bring forth that last consummate\nspecimen of God's handiwork, the Human Soul.'[4]  If this be so, this\nconclusion arrived at by those who do not hold the ordinary faith of\nChristendom, then the objection that the Incarnation could not have\ntaken place for the redemption of such a race as ours, in a world which\nis so poor a fraction of the infinite universe, falls to the ground;\nand the protest of a devout modern poet carries conviction with it:\n\n        This earth too small\n  For Love Divine!  Is God not Infinite?\n  If so, His Love is infinite.  Too small!\n  One famished babe meets pity oft from man\n  More than an army slain!  Too small for Love!\n  Was Earth too small to be of God created?\n  Why then too small to be redeemed?[5]\n\nMan may, or may not, occupy a 'central position in the universe': other\nworlds may, {102} or may not, be inhabited: this earth may be but a\nminute and insignificant speck amid the mighty All, this at least is\ncertain, that not by mere magnitude is our rank in the scale of being\nto be decided, and that in the spirit of man will be found that which\napproaches most nearly to Him who is Spirit.  'The man who reviles\nHumanity on the ground of its small place in the scale of the Universe\nis,' according to Mr. Frederic Harrison, 'the kind of man who sneers at\npatriotism and sees nothing great in England, on the ground that our\nisland holds so small a place in the map of the world.  On the atlas\nEngland is but a dot.  Morally and spiritually, our Fatherland is our\nglory, our cradle, and our grave.'[6]\n\n\nIII\n\nHence, one of the ablest attempts to supersede Christianity is that\nwhich goes by {103} the name of Positivism or the Religion of Humanity,\nwhich sets Man on the throne of the universe, and makes of him the sole\nobject of worship.  'A helper of men outside Humanity,' said the late\nProfessor Clifford, 'the Truth will not allow us to see.  The dim and\nshadowy outlines of the Superhuman Deity fade slowly away from before\nus, and, as the mist of His Presence floats aside, we perceive with\ngreater and greater clearness the shape of a yet grander and nobler\nfigure, of Him who made all gods and shall unmake them.  From the dim\ndawn of history, and from the inmost depths of every soul, the face of\nour Father _Man_ looks out upon us with the fire of eternal youth in\nHis eyes, and says, \"Before Jehovah was, I am.\"  The founder of the\norganised Religion of Humanity was Auguste Comte, who died in the year\n1857.  He held that in the development of mankind there are three\nstages: the first, the Theological, in which {104} worship is offered\nto God or gods; the second, the Metaphysical, in which the human mind\nis groping after ultimate truth, the solution of the problems of the\nuniverse; the third, the Positive, in which the search for the illusive\nand the unattainable is abandoned, and the real and the practical form\nthe exclusive occupation of the thoughts.  On Sunday, October 19, 1851,\nhe concluded a course of Lectures on the General History of Humanity\nwith the uncompromising announcement, 'In the name of the Past and of\nthe Future, the servants of Humanity, both its philosophical and\npractical servants, come forward to claim as their due the general\ndirection of this world.  Their object is to constitute at length a\nreal Providence, in all departments, moral, intellectual, and material.\nConsequently they exclude, once for all, from political supremacy, all\nthe different servants of God, Catholic, Protestant, or Deist, as being\nat once behindhand and {105} a source of disturbance.'  All religions\nwere banished by the truly 'uncompromising announcement': they were all\ncondemned as futile and unreal.  The best that could be said of the\nworship of the past was that it directed 'provisionally the evolution\nof our best feelings, under the regency of God, during the long\nminority of Humanity.'\n\nBut the fact that Religion will not be banished, that it must somehow\nfind expression, never received fuller verification.  We do not dwell\nupon the private life of Comte, its eccentricities and inconsistencies,\nbut this at least cannot be omitted: he practised a course of austere\nreligious observances, he worshipped not only Humanity at large, but he\npaid special adoration to a departed friend such as hardly the\ndevoutest of Roman Catholics has ever paid to the Virgin Mary.\nPositivism became, what Professor Huxley called it, 'Catholicism\n_minus_ Christianity.'  Comte laid down for the guidance of his {106}\ndisciples, who are potentially all mankind, rules which no existing\nreligious communion can surpass in minuteness.  The Supreme Object of\nWorship is the Great Being, Humanity, the Sum of Human Beings, past,\npresent, and future.  But as it is only too evident that too many of\nthese beings in the past and the present, whatever may be said about\nthe future, are not very fitting objects of worship, Humanity, the\nGreat Being, must be understood as including only worthy members, those\nwho have been true servants of Humanity.  The emblem of this Great\nBeing is a Woman of the age of thirty, with her son in her arms; and\nthis emblem is to be placed in all temples of Humanity and carried in\nall solemn processions.  The highest representatives of Humanity are\nthe Mother, the Wife, and the Daughter; the Mother representing the\npast, the Wife the present, and the Daughter the future.  These are in\nthe abstract to be regarded as the guardian {107} angels of the family.\nTo these angels every one is to pray three times daily, and the\nprayers, which may be read, but which must be the composition of him\nwho uses them, are to last for two hours.  Humanity, the World, and\nSpace form the completed Trinity of the Positivist Religion.  There are\nnine sacraments: Presentation, Initiation, Admission, Destination,\nMarriage, Maturity, Retirement, Transformation, Incorporation.  There\nis a priesthood, to whom is committed the duties of deciding who may or\nmay not be admitted to certain offices during life, of deciding also\nwhether or not the remains of those who have been dead for seven years\nshould be removed from the common burial-place, and interred in 'the\nsacred wood which surrounds the temple of humanity,' every tomb there\n'being ornamented with a simple inscription, a bust, or a statue,\naccording to the degree of honour awarded.'  The priests are to receive\nso comprehensive {108} a training that they are not to be fully\nrecognised till forty-two years of age.  They are to combine medical\nknowledge with their priestly qualifications.  Three successive orders\nare necessary for the working of the organisation: the Aspirants\nadmitted at twenty-eight, the Vicars or Substitutes at thirty-five, and\nthe Priests proper at forty-two.\n\nThe Religion of Humanity has a Calendar, each month of twenty-eight\ndays being in one aspect dedicated to some social relation, and in\nanother to some famous man representing some phase of human progress:\nMoses, Homer, Aristotle, Caesar, St. Paul, Gutenberg, Shakespeare.  Each\nday of the year is dedicated to one or more great men or women, five\nhundred and fifty-eight in number, and the last day of the year is the\nFestival of All the Dead.  'Our Calendar is designed to remind us of\nall types of the teachers, leaders, and makers of our race: of the many\nmodes in which the servants of Humanity {109} have fulfilled their\nservice.  The prophets, the religious teachers, the founders of creeds,\nof nations and systems of life: the poets, the thinkers, the artists,\nkings, warriors, statesmen and rulers: the inventors, the men of\nscience and of all useful arts....  Every day of the Positivist year is\nin one sense a day of the dead, for it recalls to us some mighty\nteacher or leader who is no longer on earth....  But the three hundred\nand sixty-four days of the year's calendar have left one great place\nunfilled....  Those myriad spirits of the forgotten dead, whom, no man\ncan number, whose very names were unknown to those around them in life,\nthe fathers and the mothers, the husbands and the wives, the brothers\nand the sisters, the sturdy workers and the fearless soldiers in the\nmighty host of civilisation--shall we pass them by? ... It is those\nwhom to-night we recall, all those who have lived a life of usefulness\nin their generation, though {110} they tugged as slaves at the lowest\nbank of oars in the galley of life, though they were cast unnoticed\ninto the common grave of the outcast, all whose lives have helped and\nnot hindered the progress of Humanity, we recall them all to-night.'[7]\n\n\nIV\n\nThe Religion of Humanity has numbered among its adherents, in part or\nin whole, several celebrated persons in this country, such as Richard\nCongreve, Dr. Bridges, Professor Beesley, Cotter Morison, George Eliot.\nBut at present it has no more eloquent and earnest advocate than Mr.\nFrederic Harrison, who, in _The Creed of a Layman_, and several other\nrecent volumes, has passionately proclaimed its principles.  For more\nthan fifty years he has been its apostle: 'every other aim or\noccupation has been subsidiary and instrumental to this.'[8]  It {111}\nis true that in some points he has retained his independence, and while\nthose outside accuse him of fanaticism, some of his fellow-believers\nsuspect him of heresy.[9]  But he himself is assured that in the\nworship of Humanity he has obtained the solution of his doubts[10] and\nthe satisfaction of his spirit, and on his gravestone or his urn he\nwould have inscribed the words, _He found peace_.[11]  There is much\nthat is marvellously elevated in thought as well as exquisite in\nexpression, profoundly devout as well as brilliantly argued, in the\nnarrative of his progress towards his present position.  But when his\nvehement statements are carefully examined, it will almost inevitably\nbe seen that all that is good and sensible in them is an unconscious\nreproduction of Christianity.  His negations disappear: the\naffirmations which he makes are those which the Church has always {112}\nmaintained.  The faith of his childhood permeates and strengthens and\nbeautifies the creed which he adopted in his maturer years.  The unity\nof mankind, the memory of the departed, the necessity of living for\nothers, these are no novelties in Christianity.  It is in Christ that\nthey have specially been brought to light, in Him that they find their\nhighest ratification, without Him they remain unfulfilled, with Him\nthey attain to consistency and power.\n\nThe Great Being, Humanity, is only an abstraction.[12]  'There is no\nsuch thing in reality,' Principal Caird reminds us, 'as an animal which\nis no particular animal, a plant which is no particular plant, a man or\nhumanity which is no individual man.  It is only a fiction of the\nobserver's mind.'  There is logical force as well as humorous\nillustration in the contention of Dean Page Roberts, that there is no\nmore a humanity apart {113} from individual men and women than there is\na great being apart from all individual dogs, which we may call\nCaninity, or a transcendent Durham ox, apart from individual oxen,\nwhich may be named Bovinity.'[13]  Nor does the geniality of Mr.\nChesterton render his argument the less telling: 'It is evidently\nimpossible to worship Humanity, just as it is impossible to worship the\nSavile Club: both are excellent institutions to which we may happen to\nbelong.  But we perceive clearly that the Savile Club did not make the\nstars and does not fill the universe.  And it is surely unreasonable to\nattack the doctrine of the Trinity as a piece of bewildering mysticism,\nand then to ask men to worship a being who is ninety million persons in\none God, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the\nsubstance.'[14]\n\nCan it be doubted that the Great Being, {114} the sum of human beings,\nis less conceivable, less worthy of worship than the Great Being, the\nGod and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?[15]  Can it be doubted that\nthe claim of Humanity to worship is less credible if we exclude the\nPerfect Man, Christ Jesus, from our view?  Can it be doubted that the\nPositivist motto, 'Live for others,' gains a force and a meaning\nunapproached elsewhere from the Life and Death of Him Who said, 'The\nSon of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give\nHis Life a ransom for many?'  Humanity knit together in One, purified\nfrom every stain, glorious and adorable, is a lofty and inspiring idea,\nbut nowhere has it been disclosed save in the Man Christ Jesus, the\nWord made Flesh, the Brightness of the Father's glory and the Express\nImage of His Person.\n\n\n{115}\n\nV\n\nDr. Richard Congreve owns that much of the Religion of Humanity exists\nalready in the Christian Faith, but, in one respect, he asserts that\nthe Religion of Humanity can claim to be entirely original.  'We\naccept, so have all men.  We obey, so have all men.  We venerate, so\nhave some in past ages, or in other countries.  We add but one other\nterm, we love.'[16]  That is what distinguishes this new religion and\nproves its superiority to the old: its votaries have attained this new\nprinciple and mode of life: they love one another.  The boldness of the\nclaim may stagger us.  We turn over the pages of the New Testament.  We\nsee that Love is the fulfilling of the Law; is the end of the\ncommandment; is the sum of the Law and the Prophets; is placed at the\nvery summit of Christian graces; is the bond of perfectness; {116} is\nmanifested in a Life and a Death which, after nineteen centuries,\nremain without a parallel.  We recall the touching legend that in his\nold age the Apostle S. John was daily carried into the assembly of the\nEphesian Christians, simply repeating to them, over and over, the\nwords, 'Love one another.  This is our Lord's command, fulfil this and\nnothing else is needed.'  We recall that in early centuries the\nsympathy and helpfulness by which Christians of all ranks and races\nwere united called forth from heathen spectators the amazed and\nrespectful exclamation, 'See how these Christians love one another!'\nRecalling these things, we cannot but be startled that, in the\nnineteenth century of the Christian era, a teacher should, with any\nexpectation of being believed, have ventured to affirm that the great\ndiscovery which it has been reserved for the present day to make is\nthat of loving one another.  Ignorance of Christianity,\nmisrepresentation {117} of Christianity, we may well call it: ignorance\ninconceivable, misrepresentation inconceivable: and yet, as we consider\nthe state of Christendom, do we not see what palliates the ignorance\nand the misrepresentation?  Have we not reason to confess that, if the\ncommandment be not new, universal obedience to it would be new indeed?\nMay the calm assurance that love is foreign to Christianity not startle\nus into the conviction that we have forgotten what, according to our\nLord's own declaration, the chief feature of Christianity ought to be?\n'By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love\none to another.'\n\n\nVI\n\n'How can we,' it has been well said, 'be asked to give the name of\nReligion of Humanity to a religion that ignores the greatest human\nbeing that ever lived, and the very source from which the Religion of\nHumanity {118} sprang?'[17]  Man in himself, man so full of\nimperfections, man having no connection with any world but this, man\nunallied to any Power higher, nobler than himself, is this to be our\nGod?  Which is more reasonable: to set up the race of man, unpurified,\nunredeemed, worthless and polluted, as the object of adoration, or to\nmaintain that 'Man indeed is the rightful object of our worship, but in\nthe roll of ages, there has been but one Man Whom we can adore without\nidolatry, the Man Christ Jesus'?[18]  The Religion of Humanity, so\ncalled, would have us worship Man apart from Christ Whom yet all\nacknowledge to be the glory of mankind, but we call on men to worship\nChrist Jesus, for in Him we see Man without a stain, we see our nature\nredeemed and consecrated, we see ourselves brought nigh to the Infinite\nGod.  We adore Humanity, but Humanity {119} in its purity: we adore\nHumanity, but only as manifesting in the Only Begotten Son the glory of\nthe Eternal Father.  Thus we place no garland around the vices of the\nhuman race: thus we abase, and thus we exalt: thus are we humbled to\nthe dust, thus are we raised to the highest heavens.  Apart from\nChrist, the magnitude of the creation may well depress and overwhelm:\napart from Christ the human race is morally imperfect instead of being\na fit object of blind adoration.  Seeing Christ, we not only feel our\ninconceivable nothingness in presence of the Infinite Majesty, but we\nstand erect and unpresumptuously say, 'We wonder not that Thou art\nmindful of those for whom that Son of Man lived and died, we are in Him\npartakers of the Divine Nature.  There thou beholdest Thine Own Image.'\n\nMade in the image of God, such is the ideal of Man that comes to us\nfrom the beginning of his history; and such is the ideal {120} that\nonce, and once only, has been realised.  '_Ecce Homo_!  Behold the\nMan!' said Pontius Pilate, in words more full of significance than he\nknew, pointing to the victim of priestly hatred and popular fickleness.\nBehold the Man! man as he ought to be, the Image of God.  Before that\nDivine Humanity we reverently bow, to that Divine Humanity we humbly\nconsecrate ourselves, in fellowship with It alone we learn and manifest\nthe true worth and dignity of Man.\n\nOne writing frantically to exalt mankind and to depreciate\nChristianity, tells us how he sat on a cliff overhanging the seashore\nand gazed upon the stars, murmuring, 'O prodigious universe, and O poor\nignorant, that could believe all these were made for him!' but the\nsight of a steamship caused him to rejoice at the triumph of Art over\nNature, and to exclaim, 'If man is small in relation to the universe,\nhe is great in relation to the earth: he abbreviates distance and time,\n{121} and brings the nations together.'  Then he saw that man is\nordained to master the laws of which he is now the slave; he believed\nthat if man could understand this mission, a new religion would animate\nhis life, and, in the strength of this revelation, the writer says that\nhe sang in ecstasy to the waters and winds and birds and beasts, he\nfelt a rapture of love for the whole human race, he resolved to preach\nthe New Gospel far and wide, and proclaim the glorious mission of\nmankind.[19]\n\nOn the whole the Old Gospel will be found as ennobling, as inspiring,\nas practical as the New.  All that this new Gospel aims at, we, as\nChristians, already believe: and we possess a Divine Token, a Sacred\nPledge which is foreign to it: we believe that a higher destiny is in\nstore for us than even the construction of wonders of mechanical\nskill.[20]  Stripped of all rhetoric, the conclusion of unbelief in God\nand Immortality can only {122} be 'Man is what he eats': the conclusion\nof Christianity, 'There is but one object greater than the soul, and\nthat is its Creator.'\n\nOne in a certain place testified, saying, 'What is man, that Thou art\nmindful of him, or the son of man that Thou visitest him?  Thou madest\nhim a little lower than the angels: Thou crownest him with glory and\nhonour, and didst set him over the works of Thy hands: Thou hast put\nall things in subjection under his feet.'  For in that He put all in\nsubjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him.  But\nnow we see not yet all things put under him.  But we see JESUS Who was\nmade a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned\nwith glory and honour.  We see Him Who is our Brother and our\nForerunner within the veil; and in His Exaltation we behold our\nown.[21]  No vision of the future can surpass that which the Christian\nChurch {123} has cherished from the beginning, that we shall all 'come\nin the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto\na Perfect Man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ\n... from Whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by\nthat which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in\nthe measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the\nedifying of itself in love.'\n\n\n\n[1] _Creed of a Layman_, p. 67.\n\n[2] Shelley, _Prometheus Unbound_.\n\n[3] Thomas Carlyle.\n\n[4] _Man's Destiny_, p. 31,\n\n[5] Aubrey de Vere.\n\n[6] _Creed of a Layman_, p. 76.\n\n[7] Frederic Harrison, _Creed of a Layman_.\n\n[8] _Memories and Thoughts_, p. 14.\n\n[9] _Memories and Thoughts_, p. 15.\n\n[10] Appendix XIV.\n\n[11] _Creed of a Layman_.\n\n[12] Appendix XV.\n\n[13] _Some Urgent Questions in Christian Lights_.\n\n[14] _Heretics_, p. 96.\n\n[15] Appendix XVI.\n\n[16] Appendix XVII.\n\n[17] E. A. Abbott, _Through Nature to Christ_.\n\n[18] Frederick William Robertson, _Sermon on John's Rebuke of Herod_.\n\n[19] Winwood Reade, _The Outcast_.\n\n[20] Appendix XVIII.\n\n[21] Appendix XIX.\n\n\n\n\n{126}\n\nV\n\nTHEISM WITHOUT CHRIST\n\n\n\n'Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.'--S. JOHN xiv. 1.\n\n'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father\nbut by Me.'--S. JOHN xiv. 6.\n\n'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.'--S. JOHN xiv. 9.\n\n'Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name\nunder heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.'--ACTS iv. 12.\n\n'He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and\nthe Son.'--2 S. JOHN 9.\n\n\n\n{127}\n\nV\n\nTHEISM WITHOUT CHRIST\n\nBy Theism without Christ is not meant a system like Judaism or\nMohammedanism, but a modern school which maintains that faith in God\nbecomes weakened and impaired by being associated with faith in Jesus.\nThere are those who cling with tenacity to the first article of the\nApostles' Creed, 'I believe in God the Father Almighty,' but who reject\nwith equal fervour the second article of the Creed, 'And in Jesus\nChrist, His only Son, our Lord.'  They resist with horror the\nsuggestion that the world is under no overruling Providence, or that\nthe humblest human being is not regarded with the tender love of the\nInfinite God: they rival the most {128} mystical worshipper in the\nardour of the language with which in prayer they address the Father in\nHeaven, but they refuse to bow in the Name of Jesus: they go to the\nFather, as they think, without Him: they assert that to look to Him is\nvirtually to look away from God.  They are as hostile as we can be to\nthe Substitutes for Christianity which we have been considering.  They\nhave no sympathy with those who loudly deny that there is a God, or\nwith those who say that it is impossible to find out whether there is a\nGod or not, or with those who think that the Creator and the Creation\nare one, that the universe is God, or with those who, not believing in\nany Unseen and Eternal God, insist that the proper object of the\nworship of mankind is man.  In the proclamation of the existence of an\nAll-Wise and All-holy Being, in the proclamation that He has made the\nworld and rules it to its minutest detail, in the proclamation that\n{129} there is a life beyond the grave, they are the allies of the\nChristian Church.  But then they go on to argue, For those who hold\nthese doctrines, Christ is quite superfluous: to hold them in their\npurity Christ must be dethroned and His name no longer specially\nrevered.  Some may still wish to speak of Him as among the Great\nTeachers of the world, but some, in order to preserve these precious\ntruths unmixed, decline in a very fanaticism of unbelief to assign Him\neven that position.\n\n\nI\n\nThe declaration of our Lord, 'No man cometh unto the Father but by Me,'\nhas been a chief stumbling-block and rock of offence.  Are we to\nbelieve, it is asked, that only the comparatively few to whom the\nknowledge of Jesus Christ has come can possibly be accepted of the\nFather?  When the words were spoken the number of His disciples was\nexceedingly small.  Did he mean that the {130} Father could be\napproached only by that handful of people, that all beyond were\nbanished from the Divine Presence and must inevitably perish?  That\nthis is what He meant both the friends and the foes of Christianity\nhave at times been agreed in holding.  The friends have imagined that\nthey were thereby exalting the claim of Christ to be the One Mediator.\nIt may be a terrible mystery that the vast majority of the human race\nshould have no opportunity of believing in Him, should be even\nunacquainted with His Name.  We can only bow before the inscrutable\ndecree, and strive with all our might, not only that our own faith may\nbe deepened, but that the knowledge of Christ may be diffused over all\nthe earth, so that some here and there may be rescued.  There is little\nwonder that such a view should have given rise to questionings and\nopposition, should have been rejected as inconsistent with mercy and\nwith justice.  It is an {131} interpretation on which hostile critics\nhave laid stress as incontestably proving the narrowness and bigotry of\nthe Christian Creed.\n\nIf we bear in mind Who it is that is presumed to say, 'No man cometh\nunto the Father but by Me,' the misconception disappears.  It is not\nmerely an individual man, separate from all others, giving Himself out\nas a wise and infallible Teacher.  He Who makes the stupendous claim is\nOne Who by the supposition embodies in Himself Human Nature in its\nperfection, Who is identified with His brethren, Who says, 'He that\nhath seen Me hath seen the Father.'  The Life which He manifests is the\nLife of God.  He is set forth as the Way to the Father: in mercy and in\nblessing the Way is disclosed in Him: it is not in harsh and rigid\nexclusiveness that He speaks, debarring the mass of mankind: it is in\ntender comprehensiveness, inviting all without distinction of race or\ncircumstance, opening a new {132} and living way for all into the\nHoliest.  It is the breaking down of all barriers between man and man,\nbetween man and God, not the setting up of another barrier high and\ninsurmountable.  When Christ declares 'No man cometh unto the Father\nbut by Me,' He is not declaring that the way is difficult and\nimpassable, He is pointing out a way of deliverance which all may\ntread.  So far from laying down a hard and burdensome dogma to be\naccepted on peril of pains and penalties, He is imparting a hope and a\nconsolation in which all may rejoice.\n\nIf we believe Him to be the Word of God made Flesh, if we see in Him\nthe Brightness of the Father's glory, it becomes a truism to say that\nonly through Him can life and healing be imparted to mankind.  When He\nHimself says, 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,' it is natural for\nHim to add, 'No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.'  It will {133}\nbe granted by all who believe in God that, apart from God, no soul of\nman can have life eternal.  The most strenuous advocate of the\nsalvation of the virtuous heathen will grant that their salvation does\nnot descend from the idol of wood and stone before which they grovel.\nIt is from the True God, the Living God, that the blessing proceeds.\nIt is His touch, His Spirit, His Presence which has consecrated the\nearnest though erring worship of the poor idolater.  No one who\nbelieves in the Infinite and Eternal God could possibly say that the\nmonstrous image whose aid is invoked by the devout heathen is itself\nthe answerer of his prayer, the cause of his deliverance from sin, the\nbestower of immortality upon him.  The utmost that can be said is that\nin the costly sacrifices, the painful penances, the passionate prayers\nwhich he presents to the object of his adoration, the Almighty Love\ndiscerns a longing after something nobler and better, {134} and accepts\nthe service as directed really, though unconsciously, to Him.\n\n  The feeble hands and helpless,\n  Groping blindly in the darkness,\n  Touch God's right hand in that darkness\n  And are lifted up and strengthened.[1]\n\nBut it is the hand of God that they touch.  It is from the One\nOmnipotent God that every blessing comes: it is the One Omnipotent God\nWho turns to truth and life and reality every sincere and struggling\nand imperfect attempt to serve Him on the part of those who know not\nHis Nature or His Name.\n\nAnd what is true of God is equally true of Christ, the manifestation of\nGod.  Only grant Him to be the Incarnate Word of God, and it becomes\nplain that salvation can no more exist apart from Him than apart from\nthe Father.  This Word of God is the Light that lighteth every man.\nWhatever truth, whatever knowledge of the Divine, anywhere {135} exists\nis the result of that illumination.  The sparks which shine even in the\ndarkness of heathendom betoken the presence of that Light, not wholly\nextinguished by the folly and ignorance of man.  That is the One Sun of\nRighteousness which gives light everywhere, though in many places the\nclouds are so dense that the beams can scarcely penetrate.  Now, if\nthat Word has become Flesh, if that Light has become embodied in Human\nForm, we are still constrained to say, There is no true Light but His,\nit is in His Light that all must walk if they would not stray, there is\nno Guide, no Deliverer, save Him.  Christ discloses, brings to view,\nall the saving health which has ever been, all the power of restoring,\ncleansing, healing, which has ever worked in the souls of men.  The one\nPower by which any human being, in any age or in any land, has ever\nbeen fitted for the presence of the All Holy God, is made manifest in\nChrist.  'Neither is there {136} salvation in any other, for there is\nnone other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.'\n\nWe need have no hesitation in asserting that all who in any age or in\nany land, or in any religion, have come to the Father must have come\nthrough the Son of Man, the Eternal Word made Flesh.  We do not\ncontend, as has too frequently been contended, that beyond the limits\nof Christianity, beyond, it may be, the limits of one section of\nChristianity, there is no truth believed, no acceptable service\nrendered.  We hail with gratitude the lofty thoughts and the noble\nachievements of some who do not in word acknowledge Christ as Lord.  In\nthe vision of the Light that lighteth every man, we see\n\n        How light can find its way\n  To regions farthest from the fount of day.[2]\n\n'Now,' as is well said by the present Bishop {137} of Birmingham, who\nwill hardly be accused of any tendency to minimise the claims of\nChristianity, 'this is no narrow creed.  Christianity, the religion of\nJesus, is the Light: it is the one final Revelation, the one final\nReligion, but it supersedes all other religions, Jewish and Pagan, not\nby excluding, but by including all the elements of truth which each\ncontained.  There was light in Zoroastrianism, light in Buddhism, light\namong the Greeks: but it is all included in Christianity.  A good\nChristian is a good Buddhist, a good Jew, a good Mohammedan, a good\nZoroastrian; that is, he has all the truth and virtue that these can\npossess, purged and fused in a greater and completer light.\nChristianity, I say, supersedes all other religions by including these\nfragments of truth in its own completeness.  You cannot show me any\nelement of spiritual light or strength which is in other religions and\nis not in Christianity.  Nor can you {138} show me any other religion\nwhich can compare with Christianity in completeness of light:\nChristianity is the one complete and final religion, and the elements\nof truth in other religions are rays of the One Light which is\nconcentrated and shines full in Jesus Christ our Lord.'[3]\n\n\nII\n\nFrom whatever cause, whether as a reaction against the mode in which\nthis great truth has been at times presented, there have been, and\nthere are, attempts to supersede Christianity because of its\nnarrowness.  Religion must not be identified with any one name: God\nmanifests Himself to all, and no Mediator is needed.  Theism,\ntherefore, the worship of the One Almighty and Eternal Being, not\nChristianity, in which a Human Name is associated with the Divine Name,\ncan alone pretend to be the Universal Religion, the {139} Religion of\nall Mankind.  It is not the first time that such an attempt to do\nwithout Christianity and to do away with it has been made.  In the\neighteenth century there was a similar movement.  To this day at\nFerney, near Geneva, is preserved the chapel which Voltaire erected for\nthe worship of God, of God as distinguished from Christ as Divine or as\nMediator between God and man.  Voltaire thought that he could overthrow\nand crush the Faith of Christ, but he none the less erected a temple to\nGod.  The Deists upheld what they called the Religion of Nature and\nrepudiated Revelation.  _Christianity not Mysterious; Christianity as\nold as the Creation_, were among the works issued to show the\nsuperiority of Natural Religion, its freedom from difficulties, its\nagreement with reason, its universality.  The most enduring memorial of\nthe controversy is Bishop Butler's _Analogy of Religion to the\nConstitution and Course of Nature_, {140} in which it was argued that\nthe Natural Religion of the Deists was beset by as many difficulties as\nthe Revelation of the Christians, that those who were not hindered from\nbelieving in God by the problems which Nature presented need not be\nstaggered by the problems which were presented by Christianity.  Bishop\nButler's argument was directed against a special set of antagonists, an\nargument, it may be said, of little avail against the scepticism of the\npresent day.  The argument seems to have been unanswerable by those to\nwhom it was addressed.  The grounds on which they rejected the\nRevelation of Christ were shown to be inadequate.  When they accepted\nthis or that article of Natural Religion, they had accepted what was as\ndifficult of belief as this or that part of the Revelation which they\nrejected.  The mysteries which existed in the religion with which they\nwould have nothing to do were in harmony with the {141} mysteries which\nexisted in the religion which they declared to be necessary for the\nwelfare of society.  That retort may be made with even more effect to\nthose who so far occupy that same ground to-day.  They rejoice to\nbelieve that there is a God, that He is not far off, that He\ncommunicates Himself to their souls, that the love which we bear to one\nanother is but a faint image of the love which He bears to us, that the\nnoblest qualities which exist in us exist more purely, more gloriously\nin Him, that we are in very deed His children and are called to\nmanifest His likeness.  It is by prayer, both in public and in private,\nboth in congregations and alone with the Alone, that His Love and His\nHelp can be comprehended and used.  He is no absent God: His Ear is not\nheavy that it cannot hear, nor His arm shortened that it cannot save.\nWith this belief we, as Christians, have no dispute: we gladly go along\nwith Theists in asserting it: we {142} only wonder at their\nunwillingness to go along with us a little further.  For if God be such\nas they glowingly depict Him, if our relations to Him be such as they\nesteem it our greatest dignity to know, there is nothing antecedently\nimpossible in the thought that One Man has heard His Voice more\nclearly, has surrendered to His Will more entirely, than any other in\nthe history of the ages and the races of mankind: nothing antecedently\nimpossible in the thought that to One Man His Truth has been conveyed\nmore brightly, more fully than to any other; that in One Man the\nlineaments of the Divine Image may be seen more distinctly than in any\nother.  If God be such, and if our relations to God be such, as Theists\ndescribe, why should they shrink with distrust or with antipathy from a\nSon of Man Who has borne witness to those truths in His Life and in His\nDeath with a steadfastness of conviction which none other has ever\nsurpassed; Who, according {143} to the records which we possess of Him,\nhabitually lived to do the Father's Will and died commending His Spirit\ninto the Father's Hands: a Son of Man Who could truly be said to be in\nheaven while He was on earth?  If God be such, and our relations to God\nbe such, as Theists describe, would not that Son of Man be the\nconfirmation of their thoughts?  Would not His testimony be of infinite\nvalue on their side?  Would He Himself not be the radiant illustration,\nthe eagerly longed for proof of the truth for which they contend?  They\nbelieve in God: why should it, on their own showing, be so hard to\nbelieve in Christ?\n\n\nIII\n\nThe Theism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is in some\nrespects different from the Deism of the eighteenth.  It is not so\ncold, the God in whom it believes is not so distant from His creatures.\nBut it is not {144} less vehement in its depreciation of Christianity\nas a needless and even harmful addition to the Religion of Nature.\nConspicuous among the advocates of this modern Theism have been Francis\nWilliam Newman, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, and the Rev. Charles Voysey.\n\nFrancis Newman, in his youth, belonged, like his brother the famous\nCardinal, to the strictest sect of Evangelicals, but, like the Cardinal\nalso, drifted away from them, though in a totally different\ndirection.[4]  As he found the untenableness of certain views which he\nhad cherished, the insufficiency of certain arguments which he had\nemployed, he came with much anguish of mind to the conclusion that the\nwhole fabric of historical Christianity was built upon the sand.  He\nrapidly renounced belief after belief, and caused widespread distress\nand dismay by a crude attack upon the moral perfection of {145} our\nLord.  His conviction that Christianity had nothing special to say for\nitself, and that one religion was as good as another, seems to have\nbeen mainly brought about by a discussion which he had with a\nMohammedan carpenter at Aleppo.  'Among other matters, I was\nparticularly desirous of disabusing him of the current notion of his\npeople that our Gospels are spurious narratives of late date.  I found\ngreat difficulty of expression, but the man listened to me with much\nattention, and I was encouraged to exert myself.  He waited patiently\ntill I had done and then spoke to the following effect: \"I will tell\nyou, sir, how the case stands.  God has given to you English many good\ngifts.  You make fine ships, and sharp penknives, and good cloth and\ncottons, and you have rich nobles and brave soldiers; and you write and\nprint many learned books (dictionaries and grammars): all this is of\nGod.  But there is one thing that God has withheld {146} from you and\nhas revealed to us; and that is the knowledge of the true religion by\nwhich one may be saved.\"'[5]\n\nBut although Newman was led to give up Christianity, and practically to\nhold that one religion was as good as another, he clung tenaciously to\nwhat he supposed to be common to all religions, belief in God, a belief\ndeep and ardent.  The rationalism of the Deists did not approve itself\nto him.  'Our Deists of past centuries tried to make religion a matter\nof the pure intellect, and thereby halted at the very frontier of the\ninward life: they cut themselves off even from all acquaintance with\nthe experience of spiritual men.'[6]  He nourished his soul with psalms\nand hymns: he sought communion with God.  He saw the weakness of\nMorality without the inspiring power of Religion.  'Morals can seldom\ngain living energy without the impulsive force derived from\nSpirituals....  However {147} much Plato and Cicero may talk of the\nsurpassing beauty of virtue, still virtue is an abstraction, a set of\nwise rules, not a Person, and cannot call out affection as an existence\nexterior to the soul does.  On the contrary, God is a Person; and the\nlove of Him is of all affections by far the most energetic in exciting\nus to make good our highest ideals of moral excellence and in clearing\nthe moral sight, so that that ideal may keep rising.  Other things\nbeing equal (a condition not to be forgotten) a spiritual man will hold\na higher and purer morality than a mere moralist.  Not only does Duty\nmanifest itself to him as an ever-expanding principle, but since a\nlarger and larger part of Duty becomes pleasant and easy when performed\nunder the stimulus of Love, the Will is enabled to concentrate itself\nmore on that which remains difficult and greater power of performance\nis attained.'[7]  Where shall we find a more {148} vivid or more\nspiritual description of the rise and progress of devotion in the soul\nthan in the words of this man, who placed himself beyond the pale of\nevery Christian communion?  'One who begins to realise God's majestic\nbeauty and eternity and feels in contrast how little and transitory man\nis, how dependent and feeble, longs to lean upon him for support.  But\nHe is _outside_ of the heart, like a beautiful sunset, and seems to\nhave nothing to do with it: there is no getting into contact with Him,\nto press against Him.  Yet where rather should the weak rest than on\nthe strong, the creature of the day than on the Eternal, the imperfect\nthan on the Centre of Perfection?  And where else should God dwell than\nin the human heart? for if God is in the universe, among things\ninanimate and unmoral, how much more ought He to dwell with our souls!\nand they, too, seem to be infinite in their cravings: who but He can\nsatisfy them?  Thus a restless {149} instinct agitates the soul,\nguiding it dimly to feel that it was made for some definite but unknown\nrelation towards God.  The sense of emptiness increases to positive\nuneasiness, until there is an inward yearning, if not shaped in words,\nyet in substance not alien from that ancient strain, \"As the hart\npanteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God;\nmy soul is athirst for God, even for the Living God.\"'[8]\n\nMr. Newman, in his later days, we understand, had modified the\nbitterness of his opposition to historical Christianity and was ready\nto avow himself as a disciple of Christ.\n\nMiss Frances Power Cobbe was another devout spirit who, with less\nviolence but equal decisiveness, accepted Theism as apart from\nChristianity.  In her case, even more visibly than in Mr. Newman's, it\nwas not Christianity which she rejected, but sundry distortions of it\nwith which it had in her mind become {150} identified.  She wrote not a\nfew articles so permeated with the Christian spirit and imbued with the\nChristian hope that the most ardent believer in Christ could read them\nwith entire approval and own himself their debtor.  She took an active\npart in many philanthropic movements, and she was an earnest and\neloquent advocate of faith in the Divine Ordering of the world and in\nhuman immortality.\n\n'Theism,' she said, 'is not Christianity _minus_ Christ, nor Judaism\n_minus_ the miraculous legation of Moses, nor any other creed\nwhatsoever merely stripped of its supernatural element.  It is before\nall things the positive affirmation of the Absolute Goodness of God:\nand if it be in antagonism to other creeds, it is principally because\nof, and in proportion to, their failure to assert that Goodness in its\ninfinite and all-embracing completeness.'[9]  'God is over us, and\nheaven {151} is waiting for us all the same, even though all the men of\nscience in Europe unite to tell us there is only matter in the universe\nand only corruption in the grave.  Atheism may prevail for a night, but\nfaith cometh in the morning.  Theism is \"bound to win\" at last: not\nnecessarily that special type of Theism which our poor thoughts in this\ngeneration have striven to define: but that great fundamental faith,\nthe needful substruction of every other possible religious faith, the\nfaith in a Righteous and Loving God, and in a Life of man beyond the\ntomb.'[10]\n\n'All the monitions of conscience, all the guidance and rebukes and\nconsolations of the Divine Spirit, all the holy words of the living,\nand all the sacred books of the dead, these are our primary Evidences\nof Religion.  In a word, the first article of our creed is \"I BELIEVE\nIN GOD THE HOLY GHOST.\"  After this fundamental dogma, we accept {152}\nwith joy and comfort the faith in the Creator and Orderer of the\nphysical universe, and believe in GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF\nHEAVEN AND EARTH.  And lastly we rejoice in the knowledge that (in no\nmystic Athanasian sense, but in simple fact) \"_these two are One_.\"\nThe God of Love and Justice Who speaks in conscience, and Whom our\ninmost hearts adore, is the same God Who rolls the suns and guides the\nissues of life and death.'[11]\n\nIn an able paper, _A Faithless World_, in which Miss Cobbe combated the\nassertion of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, that the disappearance of\nbelief in God and Immortality would be unattended with any serious\nconsequences to the material, intellectual, or moral well-being of\nmankind, she forcibly said, 'I confess at starting on this inquiry,\nthat the problem, \"Is religion of use, or can we do as well without\nit?\" seems to me {153} almost as grotesque as the old story of the\nwoman who said that we owe vast obligations to the moon, which affords\nus light on dark nights, whereas we are under no such debt to the sun,\nwho only shines by day, _when there is always light_.  Religion has\nbeen to us so diffused a light that it is quite possible to forget how\nwe came by the general illumination, save when now and then it has\nblazed out with special brightness.'  The comment is eminently just,\nbut does it not apply with equal force to Miss Cobbe herself?  The\nTheism which she professed was the direct outcome of Christianity,\ncould never have existed but for Christianity, was, in all its best\nfeatures, simply Christianity under a different name.\n\nThat Theism, as a separate organisation, gives little evidence of\nconquering the world is shown by the fact that, after many years, it\nboasts of only one congregation, that of the Theistic Church, Swallow\nStreet, Piccadilly, {154} of which the Rev. Charles Voysey is minister.\nMr. Voysey was at one time vicar of a parish in Yorkshire, where he\nissued, under the title of _The Sling and the Stone_, sermons attacking\nthe commonly accepted doctrines of the Church of England, and was in\nconsequence deprived of his living.  He is distinctly anti-Christian in\nhis teaching; strongly prejudiced against anything that bears the\nChristian name: criticising the sayings and doings of our Lord in a\nfashion which indicates either the most astonishing misconception or\nthe most melancholy perversion.  But his sincerity and fervour on\nbehalf of Theism are unmistakable.  He describes it as _Religion for\nall mankind, based on facts which are never in Dispute_.  The book\nwhich is called by that title is written for the help and comfort of\nall his fellowmen, 'chiefly for those who have doubted and discarded\nthe Christian Religion, and in consequence have become Agnostics or\n{155} Pessimists.'  It is prefaced by a dedication, which is also a\ntouching confession of personal faith: 'In all humility I dedicate this\nbook to my God Who made me and all mankind, Who loves us all alike with\nan everlasting love, Who of His very faithfulness causeth us to be\ntroubled, Who punishes us justly for every sin, not in anger or\nvengeance, but only to cleanse, to heal, and to bless, in Whose\nEverlasting Arms we lie now and to all eternity.'[12]\n\nMr. Voysey has compiled a Prayer Book for the use of his congregation.\nThe ordinary service is practically the morning or evening service of\nthe Book of Common Prayer, with all references to our Lord carefully\neliminated.  The hymn _Jesus, Lover of my Soul_ is changed to _Father,\nRefuge of my Soul_; and the hymn\n\n  Just as I am without one plea,\n  But that Thy blood was shed for me,\n  And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,\n    O Lamb of God, I come,\n\n{156} is rendered:\n\n  Just as I am without one plea,\n  But that Thy lore is seeking me,\n  And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,\n  O loving God, I come.\n\nThe service respecting our duty, and the service of supplication have\nmerits of their own, but, except for the wanton omission of the Name\nwhich is above every name, there is nothing in them which does not bear\na Christian impress.  'Christianity _minus_ Christ' would seem to be no\nunfair definition of their standpoint: and without Christ they could\nnot have been what they are.  The Father Who is set forth as the Object\nof worship and of trust is the Father Whom Christ declared, the Father\nWho, but for the manifestation of Christ, would never have been known.\nFar be it from us to deny that the Father has been found by those who\nhave sought Him beyond the limits of the Church: this only we affirm\nthat those by whom He {157} has been found, have, consciously or\nunconsciously, drawn near to Him by the way of Christ.  Nothing of\nvalue in modern Theism is incompatible with Christianity: nothing of\nvalue which would not be strengthened by faith in Him Who said, 'He\nthat hath seen Me hath seen the Father.'\n\n\nIV\n\nThe strange objection to faith in Christ is sometimes made that it\ninterferes with faith in the Father.  The notion of mediation is\nregarded as derogatory alike to God and to man.  There is no need for\nany one to come between: no need for God to depute another to bear\nwitness of Him: no need for us to depute Another to secure His favour,\nas from all eternity He is Love.  The assumption, the groundless\nassumption, underlying this conception is that the Mediator is a\nbarrier between man and God, a hindrance not a help to fellowship with\nthe Divine: that one {158} goes to the Mediator because access to God\nis debarred.  Whatever may occasionally have been the unguarded\nstatements of representatives of Christianity, it is surely plain that\nno such doctrine is taught, that the very opposite of such doctrine is\ntaught, in the New Testament.  'We do not,' says M. Sabatier, 'address\nourselves to Jesus by way of dispensing ourselves from going to the\nFather.  Far from this, we go to Christ and abide in Him, precisely\nthat we may find the Father.  We abide in Him that His filial\nconsciousness may become our own; that the Spirit may become our\nspirit, and that God may dwell immediately in us as He dwells in Him.\nNothing in all this carries us outside of the religion of the Spirit:\non the contrary, it is its seal and confirmation.'[13]\n\nThe whole object of the work of Christ, as proclaimed by Himself, or as\ninterpreted {159} by His Apostles, was to show the Father, to bring men\nto the Father.  'Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the\nFather in Me?  the words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself:\nbut the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.'  He 'came and\npreached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were nigh.\nFor through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.'  To\nargue that to come to Christ is a substitute for coming to God, is an\ninducement to halt upon the way, is an absolute travesty and\nperversion.  To refuse to see the glory of God in the Face of Jesus\nChrist is not to bring God near: it is to remove Him further from our\nvision.  That God should come to us, that we should go to God, through\na mediator, is only in accordance with a universal law.  'Why,' says\none, who might be expected from his theological training to speak\notherwise, 'Why, _all_ knowledge is \"mediated\" even of {160} the\nsimplest objects, even of the most obvious facts: there is no such\nthing in the world as immediate knowledge, and shall we demur when we\nare told that the knowledge of God the Father also must pass, in order\nto reach us at its best and purest, through the medium of \"that Son of\nGod and Son of Man in Whom was the fulness of the prophetic spirit and\nthe filial life?\" ...  Of this at least I feel convinced, that where\nfaith in the Father has grown blurred and vague in our days, and\nfinally flickered out, the cause must in many instances be sought--I\nwill not say in the wilful rejection, but--in the careless letting go\nof the message and Personality of the Son.'[14]  So far from the\nthought of the Father being ignored or set aside by the thought of\nChrist, we may rather say with S.  John, 'Whosoever denieth the Son,\nthe same hath not the Father: he that confesseth the Son hath the\nFather also.'  'He {161} that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he\nhath both the Father and the Son.'\n\n  The homage that we render Thee\n    Is still our Father's own;\n  Nor jealous claim or rivalry\n    Divides the Cross and Throne.[15]\n\n\nV\n\nThe notion that Theism as contrasted with Christianity is a mark of\nprogress and of spirituality is a pure imagination.  'More spiritual it\nmay be than the traditional Christianity which consists in rigid and\nstereotyped forms of practice, of ceremonial, of observance, of dogma:\nbut not more spiritual than the teaching of Christ Himself, the end and\ncompletion of Whose work was to bring men to the Father, to teach them\nthat God is a Spirit, and to send the Spirit of the Father into the\nhearts of the disciples.  It would be a strange perversity if men\nshould reject Christ in the name of spiritual {162} religion when it is\nto Christ, and to Him alone, that they owe the conception of what\nspiritual religion is.'[16]  To preach the doctrines of Theism without\nreference to Christ is to deprive them of their most sublime\nillustration, their most inspiring force, and their most convincing\nproof.\n\nIt is as Christ is known that God is believed in.  The attempt to\ncreate enthusiasm for God while banishing the Gospel of Christ meets\nwith astonishingly small response.  The 'Religion for all Mankind'\nmakes but little progress, is, in spite of the labours of\nfive-and-thirty years, confined, as we have seen, almost to a solitary\nmoderately sized congregation.  And whether or not the 'facts' on which\nthe religion is based 'are never in dispute,' the religion itself is\noften-times disputed very keenly.  Modern assaults upon religious faith\nare, as a rule, directed quite as much against Theism as {163} against\nChristianity.[17]  It is the Love, or even the existence, of the Living\nGod, it is human responsibility, it is life beyond the grave, that are\ncalled in question as frequently as the Resurrection of Christ.  The\nassurance that God at sundry times and in divers manners has spoken by\nprophets renders it not more but less improbable that He should speak\nby a Son: the assurance that there is life beyond the grave for all\nrenders it not more but less improbable that Jesus rose from the dead.\nConversely those who believe in Jesus believe with a double intensity\nin Him Whom He revealed.  'Ye believe in God,' said Christ, 'believe\nalso in Me.'  For many of us now, it is because we believe in Christ\nthat we believe also in God.  The Almighty and Eternal is beyond our\nken: the grace and truth of Jesus Christ come home to our hearts.  The\nWord that was in the beginning with God and was God, {164} is wrapt in\nimpenetrable mystery: the Word made Flesh can be seen and handled: has\n\n            wrought\n    With human hands the Creed of Creeds\n    In loveliness of perfect deeds,\n  More strong than all poetic thought.[18]\n\nAnd however it may be in a few exceptional cases, where people\nnominally renouncing Christ desperately cleave to a fragment of the\nfaith of their childhood, the fact remains that, where He ceases to be\nacknowledged, faith in the Father Whom He manifested tends, gradually\nor speedily, to vanish.\n\n\nVI\n\nThe superiority of Theism to Deism simply consists in its being more\nChristian.  With the ideas of God which 'Theists' hold, we can, as\nChristians, most cordially sympathise.  We can sincerely say, 'Hold to\nthem firmly, they are your life: let no man rob you of {165} them by\nany vain deceit.'  But we cannot help also asking, 'Whence have you\ndrawn those lofty ideas? where have you obtained so exalted a\nconception of the Divine Being in His mingled Majesty and lowliness, in\nHis inconceivable greatness, and His equally inconceivable compassion?\nWe turn from the picture of God which, with so much labour, so much\nskill, so much moral earnestness, you have exhibited, and we behold the\nOriginal in Christ and His Teaching.  However unconsciously, it is His\nTruth, it is His Features, that you have reproduced.  You have been\nbrought up in the Church of Christ, or you have been brought into\ncontact with its influences, and you have imbibed its teachings,\nperhaps more deeply than some who would not dare to question its\nsmallest precepts.  Still, Christ's teaching you have not outgrown,\nfrom Christ Himself you have not escaped.  You cannot go from His\npresence or flee from His Spirit.  Those {166} views which you hold so\nstrongly, which are to you the most ennobling that have ever been given\nof God and of religion, where is it that alone they are to be found?\nIn places where Christianity has gone before.\n\nNo doubt, belief in God is not confined to Christian countries: worship\nof the Maker of heaven and earth exists where the name of Christ has\nnever been heard, but not such belief, _such_ worship, as that for\nwhich those persons contend.  The God Whom they adore will not be found\nanywhere save where Christianity has penetrated.  In this country it is\nthe desperate clinging to one portion of the Christian Faith when all\nelse has been abandoned: in other lands, in India, for example, where\nrepresentatives of this way of thinking are not uncommon, it is the\nrapturous welcome of one of the sublime truths of Christianity before\nwhich the idolatries of their forefathers are passing away.  It is safe\nto call it a transition stage: {167} it will either part with the\nfragment of Christianity which it retains and become merged in doubt\nand speculation and unbelief; or it will include yet more of the\nChristianity of which it has grasped a part: its belief in God will be\ncrowned and confirmed by its belief in Christ.\n\nFor, speaking to those who cherish faith in the All-Righteous and\nAll-Loving God as the only hope for the regeneration of mankind, we\ncannot shut our eyes to the fact that where faith in Christ fades,\nfaith in God has a tendency to become vague and dim.  He ceases to be\nthought of as a Friend and Help at hand: He is resolved into a Creator\ninfinitely distant or into a Law, immovable, inexorable, a blind,\nunconscious Fate.  It is Christ Who gives life to the thought of God.\nIt is the Word made Flesh that makes the Eternal Word more real.  The\nattempt of the Deists to purify religion by the preaching of a God who\nhad not {168} revealed Himself, and could not reveal Himself, in a Son,\ncame to nothing.  Voltaire's chapel at Ferney still stands, but nobody\nworships in it.  Religion seemed to slumber: belief in God seemed to be\ndecaying, when the preaching of the name and the work of Christ again\naroused it into life.  And so it is now.  Whatever the ability,\nwhatever the sincerity of the advocates of belief in God without\nreference to Christ, it lacks motive-power, it lacks the missionary\nspirit.  If we may judge by the past, Theism without Christ is a faith\nwhich will not spread, which will not lay hold on the labouring and the\nheavy laden: which may be maintained as a theory, but which will not be\nas a fire in the souls of men diffusing itself by kindling other souls.\nIt is from Christ alone, from Christ the manifestation of what God is\nin Heart and Mind, from Christ the manifestation of what man ought to\nbe, from Christ Who said, 'In My Father's house are many {169}\nmansions: he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,' that there comes\nwith an authority to which, in face of the difficulties besetting the\npresent and the future, the human soul will bow, with a soothing power\nto which the human spirit will gladly yield--it is from Christ alone\nthat there comes the Divine injunction, 'Let not your heart be\ntroubled, ye believe in God, believe also in Me.'  It is as He is\nclearly seen and truly known that the clouds of error and superstition\nvanish from the Face of God, and men are drawn to worship and to trust.\n\n\n\n[1] Longfellow, _Song of Hiawatha_.\n\n[2] Keble, _Christian Year_.\n\n[3] Bishop Gore, _The Christian Creed_.\n\n[4] Appendix XX.\n\n[5] _Phases of Faith_.\n\n[6] _The Soul: its Sorrows and Aspirations_.\n\n[7] _The Soul: its Sorrows and Aspirations_.\n\n[8] _The Soul_.\n\n[9] _Alone to the Alone_.\n\n[10] _Alone to the Alone_.\n\n[11] _Alone to the Alone_.\n\n[12] Appendix XXI.\n\n[13] _The Religions of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit_.\n\n[14] J. Warschauer, _Coming of Christ_.\n\n[15] Whittier, _Our Master_.\n\n[16] R. B. Bartlett, _The Letter and the Spirit_: Bampton Lecture.\n\n[17] Appendix XXII.\n\n[18] Tennyson, _In Memoriam_.\n\n\n\n\n{172}\n\nVI\n\nTHE TRIBUTE OF CRITICISM TO CHRIST\n\n\n\n'For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being\njudges.'--DEUTERONOMY xxxii. 31.\n\n'He asked His disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of\nMan, am?  And they said, Some say that Thou art John the Baptist; some\nElias; and others Jeremias or one of the prophets.'--S. MATTHEW xvi.\n13, 14.\n\n'What think ye of Christ?  Whose Son is He?--S. MATTHEW, xxii. 42.\n\n'And there was much murmuring among the people concerning Him: for some\nsaid, He is a good man: others said, Nay, but He deceiveth the\npeople.'--S. JOHN vii. 12.\n\n'Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?  Then Simon\nPeter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go?  Thou hast the words of\neternal life.'--S. JOHN vi. 67, 68.\n\n\n\n{173}\n\nVI\n\nTHE TRIBUTE OF CRITICISM TO CHRIST[1]\n\nOf the investigations of modern criticism the most serious are those\nwhich have concerned the person of our Lord.  It has been felt both by\nassailants and by defenders of the Faith that, so long as His supremacy\nremains acknowledged, Christianity has not been overthrown.  Other\ndoctrines once considered all-important may fall into comparative\nabeyance: whether they are upheld or rejected or modified, matters\nlittle to Christianity as Christianity.  But more and more it has grown\nclear that Christ Himself {174} is the Article of a standing or a\nfalling Church.  If this doctrine is not of God, if He is not the Way,\nthe Truth, and the Life, Christianity, whatever benefits may have been\nassociated with its career, must be ranked among religions which have\npassed away.  But so long as He is admitted to be the Authority and\nstandard in the moral and spiritual realm, so long as His name is above\nevery name, the work of destruction is not accomplished.\n\nHence, renewed attempts have of late been made to tear the crown from\nHis brow, to reduce Him to the level of common men, to relegate Him to\nthe domain of myth, even to deny that He ever existed.  Although, in\ncertain quarters at present, this last and extreme position is loudly\nasserted, it is hardly necessary to occupy much time in examining it,\nthe trend of all criticism, even of the most rationalistic, being so\ndecidedly opposed to {175} it.  To deny that He existed is commonly\nfelt to be the outcome of the most arbitrary prejudice, the conclusions\nof Whately's _Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte_\nremaining grave and weighty in comparison.  That Jesus of Nazareth\nlived and taught and was crucified, that, immediately after His Death,\nHis disciples were proclaiming that He had risen, and was their living\ninspiration, these are facts which can be denied only by the very\nextravagance of scepticism.  And the admission of these simple facts\nimplies a great deal more than is commonly supposed.\n\n\nI\n\nIt is the fashion for hostile critics to say, 'Christianity is not\ndependent upon Christ: it is the creation of the semi-historical Paul,\nnot of the unhistorical Jesus.  There is at best no more connection\nbetween Christendom and Christ than between America and {176} Amerigo\nVespucci.[2]  See how much Christians have been obliged to give up: see\nhow belief after belief has had to be surrendered; see how they are now\nleft with the merest fragment of their ancient Creed, how evidently\nthey will soon be compelled to part with the little to which they still\ndesperately cling.'  The conclusion is somewhat hasty and premature.\nThe fragment which remains is after all the main portion of the Creed\nof the early disciples.  Where that fragment is declared and held and\nlived in, there is the presence and the power of the Christian Faith.\nWe need not trouble ourselves about sundry points which, at one epoch\nor another, have come to be denied or ignored: we need not say anything\neither for them or against them.  We have to take our stand on what is\naccepted, not on what is rejected.  And for the moment we may {177}\nventure to take our stand only on what is accepted by the critics least\nbiassed in favour of the traditional views of Christendom.  Those who\nhave come to imagine it to be a mark of advanced culture to break with\nall religion, to confine their attention to the fleeting present, to\nreject all that claims to have Divine sanction, may listen with respect\nto the words of some who appear in fancied hostility to Christianity.\n\nWe are not assuming that because men are great in Science or History or\nPhilosophy they must be great in spiritual things.  Their achievements\nin their own sphere, let us gratefully recognise; their uprightness,\ntheir single-heartedness, let us imitate; and if by chance they are\nsincere Christians as well as able men, let us rejoice; if they are not\nprofessing Christians at all and yet bear witness to the beneficial\ninfluence of Christianity and the unique power of the words and\ncharacter of Christ, let us hail with {178} pleasure their tribute of\nadmiration as a testimony impartial and unanswerable to the\npre-eminence of our Lord, but let not our faith in God, our knowledge\nof our Saviour, be dependent on their verdict.  The Faith of the Gospel\ndoes not stand or fall with their approval or disapproval.  In matters\nof criticism we do well to defer to scholars, in matters of science we\ndo well to defer to men of science.  But in matters pertaining to the\ninner life, to the development of character, to the knowledge of things\npure and lovely and of good report, such men have no exclusive claim to\nbe listened to.  And it would be absurd to say that we cannot make up\nour minds as to whether Christ is worthy to be revered and loved and\nfollowed until we have ascertained what is said about Him by\nauthorities in physics, or geology, or astronomy, by statesmen or\nnovelists or writers of magazine articles, by inventors of ingenious\nmachines or authors of {179} sensational stories.  If they speak\nscoffingly, if they do not recognise any sacredness in His Spirit and\nLife, it will be impossible for us to take Him as our Moral and\nSpiritual Guide.\n\nWe might almost as well say that we will not trust the truthfulness or\ngoodness of our father or mother or brother or friend of many years,\nunless, from persons eminent in literature or science or politics, we\nhave testimonials assuring us that our affection for those with whom we\nare so closely associated is not a delusion.  That is a matter, we\nshould all feel, with which the great and distinguished, however justly\ngreat and distinguished, have really nothing to do.  It is a matter for\nourselves, a matter in which our own experience is worth more than the\nverdict of people, however learned in their own line, who do not, and\ncannot, know the friend or relative as we know him ourselves.  Still,\nwe regard it as an additional {180} compliment to his worth, and an\nadditional confirmation of our own faith, if those who have been\njealously scrutinising his conduct declare that they can find no fault\nin him.[3]\n\nIf it is made plain that the positive teaching of men unconnected with\nany Church, untrammelled by any creed, is a virtual assertion of much\nthat is most dear to Christianity, if it is made plain that even where\nthere is strong denial there is also much reference to Christ, it may\nhave more weight than the most cogent arguments or the most glowing\nappeals of orthodox divines or devout believers.  The Evangelists\ndelight to record instances of unexpected, unfriendly, unimpeachable\ntestimony to the power of Christ.  It is not only that the\nsimple-minded people were astonished at His doctrine, but that the\nsoldiers who were sent to silence Him {181} returned, smitten with\namazement, saying, 'Never man spake like this Man.'  It is not only\nthat a grateful penitent washed His Feet with tears, but that the\nunprincipled governor who sentenced Him to death declared 'I find in\nHim no fault at all.'  It is not only that an Apostle confesses, 'Thou\nart the Christ the Son of the Living God,' but that the centurion who\nwatched over His Crucifixion exclaimed, 'Certainly this was a Righteous\nMan: this was a Son of God.'  It is similar unprejudiced witness that\nwe may hear around us still, the witness of those who profess to have\nanother rule of life than ours, and to be in no degree influenced by\nour traditions.  We must not expect too much from this kind of\nevidence: we must not expect clear logical proof of every article\nrightly or wrongly identified with the popularly termed 'orthodox'\nCreed.  It would destroy the value of the evidence {182} simply to\nquote orthodox doctrines in orthodox language.  What we rather offer is\nthe testimony of those who have resigned their grasp on much that we\nmay deem essential.  It is because in a sense we may call them\n'enemies' that we ask them to be 'judges' in the great controversy.  It\nis exactly because they are incredulous, or sceptical, or irreligious\nthat we cite them at all.  We confine ourselves to the utterances of\nmen who are commonly cited as hostile to the commonly accepted Faith of\nChrist, or who do not rank among the number of His nominal disciples,\nor who at least have discussed His claims by critical and historical\nmethods, endeavouring fairly to take into account all the facts which\nthe circumstances warrant.  We say to those who disown the authority of\nChrist: It is not to the words of Evangelists or preachers that your\nattention is sought: it is to the words of those whom you {183} profess\nto respect, of those because of whose supposed antagonism to\nChristianity you are rejecting Him.  We ask you to listen to them and\nto consider whether He of Whom such men speak in such terms is to be so\nlightly set aside as you have fancied.\n\n\nII\n\nIt will be strange if, accepting even that scanty creed, we do not find\nourselves speedily accepting much more.  When it is heartily\nacknowledged that Jesus of Nazareth lived and died, and that His first\nfollowers found strength and irresistible power in the conviction that\nHe had conquered death and the grave, it is of necessity that we go\nfurther.  The extreme sceptics who maintain that He never existed are,\nfor the purpose of controversy, wise in their generation, for, once His\nexistence is admitted, His mysterious power begins to tell.  We are\nconfronted {184} with an Influence by which, consciously or\nunconsciously, we must be affected, a knowledge which we must acquire,\nan Authority to which we must bow.  Let us not think merely of those\nwho have, in utter devotion, yielded their hearts and souls to Him\nthrough all the centuries, of the institutions and customs which owe\ntheir existence directly to Him; let us think of the manifestations\nwhich are so often visible in those who do not suspect whence the\nmanifestations come, let us think of the tributes of affection, of\nhomage, of devotion which are paid by those to whom the ancient faith\nin His Divinity appears to be an illusion or an impossible exaggeration.\n\nScarcely any critic of recent years has been regarded as more\ndestructive than Professor Schmiedel.  Indignant attack after indignant\nattack has been made upon him for arguing that only nine sayings\nattributed to our Lord can be accepted as genuine, that {185} all else\nis involved in suspicion.  What Schmiedel really does maintain is that\nthese nine sayings must of necessity be accepted as genuine, cannot be\nrejected by any sane canon of criticism, and that the acceptance of\nthese nine sayings, these 'foundation-pillars,' compels the acceptance\nof a great deal besides.  '_What then have I gained in these nine\nfoundation pillars_?  You will perhaps say \"Very little\": I reply, \"I\nhave gained just enough.\"  Having them, I know that Jesus must really\nhave come forward in the way He is said to have done....  In a word, I\nknow, on the one hand, that His Person cannot be referred to the region\nof myth; on the other hand, that He was man in the full sense of the\nterm, and that, without of course denying that the Divine character was\nin Him, this could be found only in the shape in which it can be found\nin any human being.  I think, therefore, that if we knew no more we\nshould {186} know by no means little about Him.  But as a matter of\nfact the foundation-pillars are but the starting-point for our study of\nthe life of Jesus.'[4]  And this study, he concludes, gives us nothing\nless than 'pretty well the whole bulk of Jesus' teaching, in so far as\nits object is to explain in a purely religious and ethical way what God\nrequires of man and wherein man requires comfort and consolation from\nGod.' The standpoint of Professor Schmiedel is not the standpoint of\nthe Church as a whole: he fearlessly and aggressively endeavours to\nremove any misconception on that subject: all the more remarkable that,\nrenouncing so much, he incontrovertibly establishes so much,\nincontrovertibly establishes, we may not unreasonably contend, a great\ndeal more than he admits: he cannot, we may think, stop logically where\nhe does.  All this may, or may not, be legitimately argued: there can\n{187} be no doubt that one whose dislike of traditional dogmas is\nexcessive, and whose scrutiny of the Gospel records is minute and\nunsparing, forces us to say of Jesus, What manner of Man is this?\n\nIt is the same with the general tendency of modern criticism.  From the\nday that Strauss accomplished his destructive work, the Figure of Jesus\nas a Historical Reality has been more and more endowed with power.[5]\nNo age has so occupied itself with Him, none has so endeavoured to\nrecall the features of His character, to apply His teachings to the\nsolution of social questions, as this age of ruthless inquiry.  The\ninquirers may have abjured tradition, but almost without exception they\nhave profoundly reverenced, if they have not actually worshipped, Jesus\nof Nazareth, and they have found in His Gospel moral and spiritual\nlight and life.\n\n{188}\n\nSome thirty years ago, M. Andre Lefevre, a fervid disciple of\nMaterialism, an uncompromising and bitter opponent of every symptom of\nreligious manifestation, could not help discerning 'with the\nclairvoyance of hatred,' the influence of Christianity in modern\nthought.  'Descartes, Leibnitz, Locke, Condillac, Newton, Bonnet, Kant,\nHegel, Spinoza himself, Toland and Priestley, Rousseau, all are\nChristians somewhere....  Voltaire himself has not completely\neliminated the virus: his Deism is not exempt from it.'[6]  The same\nthing is still occurring.  In the most unexpected quarters we find the\nfascination of Christ remaining.  Men not acknowledging themselves to\nbe His followers, defiantly proclaiming that they are not His\nfollowers, that they can hardly be even interested in Him, are yet\nperpetually returning, in what they themselves will confess as their\nhigher moments, to the thought of {189} Him, trying to make plain why\nit is that for them there is in Him no beauty that they should desire\nHim.  For example, this is how Mr. H. G. Wells, the popular author of\nso many imaginative works, attempts frankly to explain his attitude:\n\n'I hope I shall offend no susceptibilities when I assert that this\ngreat and very definite Personality in the hearts and imaginations of\nmankind does not, and never has, attracted me.  It is a fact I record\nabout myself without aggression or regret.  I do not find myself able\nto associate him in any way with the emotion of salvation.'  But Mr.\nWells goes on to say: 'I admit the splendid imaginative appeal in the\nidea of a divine human friend and mediator.  If it were possible to\nhave access by prayer, by meditation, by urgent outcries of the soul,\nto such a being whose feet were in the darknesses, who stooped down\nfrom the light, who was at once great and little, limitless in power\n{190} and virtue, and one's very brother; if it were possible by sheer\nwill in believing to make and make one's way to such a helper, who\nwould refuse such help?  But I do not find such a being in Christ.  I\ndo not find, I cannot imagine such a being.  I wish I could.  To me the\nChristian Christ seems not so much a humanised God as an\nincomprehensibly sinless being, neither God nor man.  His sinlessness\nwears his incarnation like a fancy dress, all his white self unchanged.\nHe had no petty weaknesses.  Now the essential trouble of my life is\nits petty weaknesses.  If I am to have that love, that sense of\nunderstanding fellowship which is, I conceive, the peculiar magic and\nmerit of this idea of a Personal Saviour, then I need some one quite\nother than this image of virtue, this terrible and incomprehensible\nGalilean with his crown of thorns, his bloodstained hands and feet.  I\ncannot love him any more than I can love a man {191} upon the rack.'\n'The Christian's Christ is too fine for me, not incarnate enough, not\nflesh enough, not earth enough.  He was never foolish and hot-eared and\ninarticulate, never vain, he never forgot things, nor tangled his\nmiracles.'[7]\n\nThere is no disputing about tastes; and it is impossible to refute one\nwho tells us that he cannot see and cannot understand, though we may\nlament and be astonished at his disabilities.  Why a man upon the rack\nshould not be loved, or why the prime qualification for the Saviour of\nmankind should be the plentiful possession of petty weaknesses, or why\nit should be necessary for Him to be sometimes foolish and to have a\nbad memory, or what necessary connection there is between hot-ears and\nthe salvation of the world, need not detain us long.  For in spite of\nthis apparently curious longing for a Deliverer who shall be weak and\nvain {192} and forgetful and hot-eared, and foolish, and of the earth\nearthy, Mr. Wells shows us that the urgent outcry of his soul is for a\nBeing limitless in power and virtue and one's very brother; and though\nhe says that he does not find such a Being in Christ, it is exactly\nwhat Christians have in all ages been finding.  'We have not an High\nPriest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but\nwas in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.  Let us\ntherefore come boldly unto the Throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy\nand find grace to help in times of need.'\n\n\nIII\n\nThe instance which we have cited is exceptional among modern doubters,\namong those who have deliberately set themselves without violent\nprejudice to study the claims of Christianity.  Be it in poetry or\nprose, in scientific criticism or in imaginative {193} biography, with\nremarkable unanimity, while stubbornly refusing to accept the Creed of\nthe Church, they so depict Him that the natural conclusion of their\nrepresentation is, 'Oh, come let us adore Him.'  There is scarcely any\nof them who would not sympathise with the admission and aspiration of\nB. Wimmer in his confession, _My Struggle for Light_: 'I cannot but\nlove this unique Child of God with all the fervour of my soul, I cannot\nbut lift up eyes full of reverence and rapture to this Personality in\nwhom the highest and most sacred virtues which can move the heart of\nman shine forth in spotless purity throughout the ages.  Even if many a\ntrait in His portrait, as the Gospels sketch it for us, be more\nlegendary than historical, yet I feel that here a man stands before me,\na man who really lived and has a place in history like that of no other\nman: indeed I feel that even the legends concerning Him possess a truth\nin that they spring from the {194} Spirit which passed from Him into\nHis Church.  I know what I have to thank Him for.  I would in my inmost\nself be so closely united with Him that He may live in my spirit and\nbear absolute sway in my soul.  I will not be ashamed of His Cross and\nI will gladly endure the insults which men have directed, and still\noften enough direct, against Him and His truth.'\n\nThat is the characteristic and dominant note of the more recent\ncriticism.  The almost universal conclusion is that the Perfect Ideal\nhas been depicted in the Christ of the Gospels, and has been depicted\nbecause the Reality had been seen in Jesus of Nazareth.[8]  Is it not\nallowable to declare that the writers, let them say what they will\nabout their rejection of the doctrine of the Church concerning the\nIncarnation and the Atonement of Christ, are practically His disciples,\nthat the ardour of their faith in Him not {195} infrequently puts to\nshame the coldness of us who call Him Lord?[9]  There is scarcely\nextravagance in the assertion that, as we recognise the part which\nStrauss and Renan played, and the unconscious help which they rendered,\n'we may well say now \"_noster_\" Strauss and \"_noster_\" Renan.  They\nwere, in their measure, and, according to their respective abilities,\ndefenders of the Faith.'[10]  While it is possible to lament that among\nChristian apologists there are timid surrenders and faithless\nforebodings, it is yet more possible to reply that 'Whereas our critics\nwere at one time infidels and our bitter enemies, they are now proud of\nthe name of Christian and ready to be the friends, as far as that is\npermitted, of every form of orthodoxy in Christianity.'[11]\n\nThe language in which, at any rate, they express their conception of\nHim is sometimes {196} more devout, more exalted, than the language\nwhich used to be employed by professed apologists.  The Hindu Theist,\nProtab Chandra Mozoomdar, who stood outside the fold of Christianity,\njoyfully proclaimed, 'Christ reigns.  As the law of the spirit of\nheavenly life, He reigns in the bosom of every believer....  Christ\nreigns as the recogniser of Divine humanity in the fallen, the low, and\nthe despicable, as the healer of the unhappy, the unclean, and the sore\ndistressed.  Reigns He not in the sweet humanity that goes forth to\nseek and to save its kin in every land and clime, to teach and preach,\nand raise and reclaim, to weep and watch and give repose?  He reigns as\nsweet patience and sober reason amid the laws and orders of the world;\nas the spirit of submission and loyalty He reigns in peace in the\nkingdoms of the world....  Christ reigns in the individual who feebly\nwatches His footprints in the tangled mazes of life.  {197} He reigns\nin the community that is bound together in His name.  As Divine\nHumanity, and the Son of God, He reigns gloriously around us in the New\nDispensation.'[12]\n\nOr listen to the rhapsody with which Mrs. Besant, once an Atheist, now\na Theosophist, depicts His influence from age to age: 'His the steady\ninpouring of truth into every brain ready to receive it, so that hand\nstretched out to hand across the centuries and passed on the torch of\nknowledge, which thus was never extinguished.  His the Form which stood\nbeside the rack and in the flames of the burning pile, cheering His\nconfessors and His martyrs, soothing the anguish of their pains and\nfilling their hearts with His peace.  His the impulse which spoke in\nthe thunder of Savonarola, which guided the calm wisdom of Erasmus,\nwhich inspired the deep ethics of the God-intoxicated Spinoza....  His\nthe beauty that allured Fra {198} Angelico and Raphael and Leonardo da\nVinci, that inspired the genius of Michael Angelo, that shone before\nthe eyes of Murillo, and that gave the power that raised the marvels of\nthe world, the Duomo of Milan, the San Marco of Venice, the Cathedral\nof Florence.  His the melody that breathed in the Masses of Mozart, the\nsonatas of Beethoven, the oratorios of Handel, the fugues of Bach, the\naustere splendour of Brahms.  Through the long centuries He has striven\nand laboured, and, with all the mighty burden of the Churches to carry,\nHe has never left uncared for and unsolaced one human heart that cried\nto Him for help.'[13]  When we read sentences like these by themselves\nwe say, Here is unqualified acceptance of the Christian Faith.  And\neven when we are told that we must not take the sentences in their\nliteral and natural meaning, that they apply not to Him Whose earthly\n{199} career is sketched in the Gospels, but to an Ideal Being evolved\nout of the writer's imagination, we are surely entitled to answer, It\nis of Jesus that the words are spoken, whether their meaning is to be\ntaken literally or figuratively; if they have any meaning at all, they\nindicate a Being without a parallel.  That there should be so\nextraordinary a conflict of opinion regarding Him, that the greatest\nintellects as well as the simplest souls should hail Him as Divine,\nthat the most critical should still find their explanations\ninsufficient to account for the impression which He made upon His\ncontemporaries and continues to wield to this day, at least renders Him\nabsolutely unique.  Men may disbelieve a great deal; they cannot\ndisbelieve that this Amazing Personality has a place in the heart of\nthe world which no other has ever occupied.  The alleged imaginary\nIdeal has had on earth only one approximate Embodiment.  Nay, we are\n{200} forced to confess, without the actual Character disclosed from\nNazareth to Calvary, the Ideal would never have been conceived.\n\n\nIV\n\nRobert Browning has described in his _Christmas Eve_ a certain German\nprofessor lecturing upon the myth of Christ and the sources whence it\nis derivable.  But as the listeners wait for the inference that faith\nin Him should henceforth be discarded, 'he bids us,' says the supposed\nnarrator of the story, 'when we least expect it take back our faith':\n\n  Go home and venerate the myth\n  I thus have experimented with.\n  This Man, continue to adore Him\n  Rather than all who went before Him,\n  And all who ever followed after.\n\n\nThis is a correct though humorous summary of much prevalent scepticism.\nWhile critics destroy with the one hand, they build up {201} with the\nother; while they seem intent on rooting out every remnant of trust in\nChrist, they frequently conclude by passionately beseeching us to make\nHim our Model and our King, our Pattern and our Guide.  If there is\nanything which is calculated at once to arouse us who profess and call\nourselves Christians and to make us ashamed, it is that the diligence\nwith which His Example is followed, the earnestness with which His\nwords are studied, by some whom we hold to have abandoned the Catholic\nFaith, throw into the shade the obedience, the love, the earnestness\nwhich prevail among ourselves.  They who follow not with us are casting\nout devils in His name.  It is with us, they are careful to say, and\nnot with Him that they are waging war.  They may dispute the incidents\nof His recorded Life: they may insist on reducing Him to the level of\nhumanity, but they also insist that in so doing they act according to\nHis Own {202} Mind, that they refuse, for the very love which they bear\nHim, to surround Him with a glory which He would have rejected.  Devoid\nof the errors which have led astray His successors, exalted far above\nthe wisest and the best of those who have spoken in His Name, it is the\nfunction of criticism to show Him in His fashion as He lived, to sweep\naway the falsehoods which have gathered round Him in the course of\nages.[14]\n\nWe do not seek to read into the emotional language of such writers a\nsignificance which they would repudiate, but we are surely entitled to\npoint out that in spite of themselves they are bringing their tribute\nof homage to the King of the Jews, the King of all mankind.  They grant\nso much that, it seems to us, they must grant yet more.  We, at any\nrate, cannot stop where they deem themselves obliged to stop.  We must\ngo further, we hear other voices swell the {203} chorus of adoration,\nwe have the witness not only of those who, in awe and wonderment have\nexclaimed, 'Truly this was a Son of God,' but we have the witness of\nthose who from heartfelt conviction are able to say, 'The life which I\nnow live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved\nme and gave Himself for me.'  And to them we humbly hope to be able to\nrespond, 'Now we believe not because of the language of others, whether\nhonest doubters or devout disciples, for we have heard Him ourselves,\nand know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.'\n\n'Restate our doctrines as we may,' to sum up all in the words of one\nwho began his career as a teacher in the confidence that Jesus of\nNazareth was merely a man, but whom closer study and deepening\nexperience have brought to a fuller faith, 'reconstruct our theologies\nas we will, this age, like every age, beholds in Him the Way to God,\nthe {204} Truth of God, the Life of God lived out among men: this age,\nlike every age, has heard and responds to His call, \"Come unto Me all\nye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest\": this age,\nlike every age, finds access to the Father through the Son.  These\nthings no criticism can shake, these certainties no philosophy\ndisprove, these facts no science dissolve away.  He is the Religion\nwhich He taught: and while the race of man endures, men will turn to\nthe crucified Son of Man, not with a grudging, \"Thou hast conquered, O\nGalilean!\" but with the joyful, grateful cry, \"My Lord and my God.\"'[15]\n\n\nV\n\nHe who was lifted up on the Cross is drawing all men to Himself, wise\nand unwise, friend and foe, devout and doubting, is ruling even where\nHis authority is disavowed, is {205} causing hearts to adore where\nintellects rebel.  The patriotic English baron, Simon de Montfort, as\nhe saw the Royal forces under Prince Edward come against him, was\nfilled with admiration of their discipline and bearing.  'By the arm of\nS. James,' he cried, recalling with soldierly pride that to himself\nthey owed in great measure their skill, 'they come on well: they\nlearned that not of themselves, but of me.'  The Church of Christ, when\nconfronted with the benevolence, the integrity, the zeal of some who\nare arrayed against her, may naturally say, 'They live well indeed:\nthey learned that not of themselves, but of me.'  'You are probably,'\nwas the homely expostulation of Benjamin Franklin with Thomas Paine,\n'you are probably indebted to Religion for the habits of virtue on\nwhich you so justly value yourself.  You might easily display your\nexcellent talents of reasoning upon a less hazardous subject, and\nthereby obtain a rank amongst {206} our most distinguished authors.\nFor among us,' continued Franklin satirically, 'it is not necessary, as\namong the Hottentots, that a youth, to be raised into the company of\nmen, should prove his manhood by beating his mother.'  The blows\ninflicted on Christianity come from unfilial hands and hearts, from\nhands and hearts which have been strengthened and nurtured on\nChristianity itself, from hands and hearts which, but for the lingering\nChristianity that still impels them, would soon be paralysed and dead.\nThe ideals which systems intended to supersede Christianity set before\nthem are, to all intents and purposes, only Christianity under another\nname.  Where the ideals go beyond ordinary Christian practice, they are\nonly a nearer approximation to the Supreme Ideal which has never been\nfulfilled save in Jesus Christ Himself.  Wherever there is truth in\nthem which is not generally accepted, or which comes as a surprise,\ninvestigation {207} will show that it is an aspect of Christianity\nwhich Christians have been neglecting, that it is a manifestation of\nthe mind of Christ, a development of His principles.  Look where we\nwill, the men that are making real moral and spiritual progress are\nthose who are in touch with Him.  Their beliefs about Him may not be\naccurate, their conception of His nature and work may be defective, but\nit is His Name, His Spirit, His Power, it is Himself that is the secret\nof their life.  One part of His teaching has sunk into their hearts,\none element of His character has mysteriously impressed them.  They\nhave touched the hem of His garment, the shadow of His Apostle passing\nby has glided over them, and they have been roused from weakness and\ndeath.  'He that was healed wist not Who it was, for Jesus had conveyed\nHimself away.'  So it happened in the days of His flesh: so is it\nhappening still: they that are set free may not yet know to Whom {208}\ntheir freedom is to be ascribed.  Now, as on the way to Emmaus, when\nmen are communing together and reasoning, Jesus Himself may be walking\nwith them, though their eyes are holden that they do not know Him.\nJohn Stuart Mill, whose acute intellect, whose spotless rectitude,\nwhose public spirit, whose non-religious training naturally made him\nthe idol of those to whom Christianity was a bygone superstition, came\nin his later days, not indeed to accept the orthodox creed, but yet to\nstretch out his longing hand to Christ, believing that He might have\n'unique commission from God to lead mankind to truth and virtue.'\nGeorge Eliot, whose genius was ever labouring to fill up the void which\nthe rejection of her early faith had made, consoled her dying hours, as\nshe had inspired her most ennobling pages, with the _Imitation of\nChrist_.  Matthew Arnold, most cultured of critics, joins hands with\nthe most fervid of evangelists in maintaining that {209} 'there is no\nway to righteousness but the way of Jesus.'  The name of Christ--none\nother name under heaven given among men will ever prove a substitute\nfor that.\n\nRenouncing faith in Christ, is there life, is there salvation for man\nto be found in the doctrines, the names, the influences which are so\nvehemently extolled?  Is there one of them which so satisfies the\ncravings of the heart, which enkindles such glorious hopes, which\ninspires to such holy living, which inculcates so universal a\nbrotherhood, as Christianity?  Is there one of them which, at the best,\nis more than a keeping of despair at bay, than a resolute acceptance of\nutter overthrow, than a blindness to the tremendous issues which are\ninvolved?[16]  Will the culture which is devoted, and cannot but be\ndevoted, exclusively to the outward, which imparts a knowledge of\nScience or Art or Literature, be found sufficient to {210} rescue men\nfrom the slavery of sin or from the torment of doubt?  Will the\nprogress which is altogether occupied with the material and the\nphysical, with providing better houses and better food and better\nwages, produce happiness without alloy and remove the sting and dread\nof death?[17]  Will the reiteration of the dogma that we are but\nfleeting shadows, that there is nothing to hope for in the future, that\nwe are all the victims of delusion, tend to elevate and benefit our\ndowncast race?  Will the attempt to worship what has never been made\nknown, what is simply darkness and mystery, be more successful in\nraising men above themselves than the worship of the Righteousness and\nthe Love which have been made manifest in Christ?  Will the attempt to\nsupplant the worship of Jesus Christ, in Whom was no sin, by the\nworship of Humanity at large, of Humanity stained with guilt and crime\nas {211} well as illumined here and there with deeds of heroism, of\nHumanity sunk to the level of the brutes as well as exalted to the\nlevel of whatever we may suppose to be the highest, seeing that there\nis really no higher existence with which to compare it--will this\nworship of itself, with all its baseness and imperfection, this turning\nof mankind into a Mutual Adoration Society, make Humanity divine?  Will\neven the assurance that far-distant ages will have new inventions,\nfairer laws, more abundant wealth be any deliverance to us from our\nburdens, any salvation from our individual sorrow and guilt and shame?\nCan we to whom the likeness of Christ has been shown, can we imagine\nthat any of these efforts to answer the yearning of mankind for\ndeliverance from the body of this death will prove an efficient\nsubstitute for Him?  And if we forsake Him, it must be in one or other\nof these directions that we go.\n\n\n{212}\n\nVI\n\nBut the signs of the times are full of hope.  In social work at home,\nin the progress of missions abroad, in revivals of one kind and\nanother, in growing reverence for holy things, in a renewed interest in\nreligion as the most vital of all topics, even in strange spiritual\nmanifestations not within the Church, we have, amid all that is\ndiscouraging and depressing, indication of the coming kingdom.  The\ncry, 'Back to Christ,' with all the truth that is in it, is only half a\ntruth if it does not also mean 'Forward to Christ.'  He is before us as\nwell as behind us, and the Hope of the World is the gathering together\nof all things in Him.  Should there be, as there has been over and over\nagain in days gone by, a widespread unbelief, a rejection of His Divine\nRevelation, of this we may be sure--it will be only for a time.  When\nthe sceptical physician, in Tennyson's poem, murmured:\n\n  'The good Lord Jesus has had his day,'\n\n{213} the believing nurse made the comment:\n\n  'Had? has it come?  It has only dawned: it will\n      come by and by.'\n\nA thought most sad, though most inspiring.  'Only dawned.'  Why is\nChristianity after all these centuries only beginning to be manifested?\nIt is at least partly because of the apathy, the divisions, the evil\nlives of us who profess and call ourselves Christians, because we have\nwrangled about the secondary and the comparatively unimportant, and\nhave neglected the weightier matters of the law, because we have so\nleft to those beyond the Church the duty of proclaiming and enforcing\nprinciples which our Lord and His Apostles put in the forefront of\ntheir teaching.  We have narrowed the Kingdom of Christ, we have\nclaimed too little for Him, we have forgotten that He has to do with\nthe secular as well as with the spiritual, that He must be King of the\nNation as well as of the Church.  But now in the growing {214}\nprominence of Social Questions, which so many fear as an evidence of\nthe waning of religion, have we not an incentive to show that the\nsocial must be pervaded by the religious, that our duties to one\nanother are no small part of the Kingdom of Christ?  For all sorts and\nconditions of men, for masters and servants, for rulers and ruled, for\nemployers and employed, there is ever accumulating proof that only as\nthey bear themselves towards each other in the spirit of the New\nTestament can there be true harmony and mutual respect; that only, in\nshort, as the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and\nof His Christ will men in reality bear one another's burdens; that only\nas the Everlasting Gospel of the Everlasting Love prevails will all\nstrife and contention, whether personal or political or ecclesiastical\nor national, come to an end; that only as men enter into the fellowship\nof that Son of Man Who came not to be {215} ministered unto but to\nminister and to give His Life a ransom for many will the glorious\nvision of old be fulfilled: I saw in the night vision, and behold One\nlike the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the\nAncient of Days and they brought Him near before Him.  And there was\ngiven Him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations\nand languages shall serve Him.  His dominion is an everlasting dominion\nwhich shall not pass away and His kingdom that which shall not be\ndestroyed.\n\n\n\n[1] In this Lecture are included some paragraphs from a sermon long out\nof print, _The Witness of Scepticism to Christ_, preached before the\nSynod of Lothian and Tweeddale.\n\n[2] G. Lommel, _Jesus von Nazareth_ (quoted in Pfannmueller's _Jesus im\nUrteil der Jahrhunderte_).\n\n[3] Appendix XXIII.\n\n[4] _Jesus in Modern Criticism_.\n\n[5] H. Weinel, _Jesus im neunzehnten Jahrhundert_.\n\n[6] Quoted in E. Naville, _Le Temoignage du Christ_.\n\n[7] _First and Last Things: a Confession of Faith and Rule of Life_.\n\n[8] Appendix XXIV.\n\n[9] Appendix XXV.\n\n[10] _Lux Hominum_, Preface.\n\n[11] _Lux Hominum_, p. 84.\n\n[12] _The Oriental Christ_.\n\n[13] _Esoteric Christianity_.\n\n[14] Appendix XXVI.\n\n[15] J. Warschauer, _The New Evangel_.\n\n[16] Appendix XXVII.\n\n[17] Appendix XXVIII.\n\n\n\n\n{219}\n\nAPPENDICES\n\n\nAPPENDIX I\n\n'I hope no reader imagines me so weak to stand up in defence of real\nChristianity such as used in primitive times (if we may believe the\nauthors of those ages) to have an influence upon men's beliefs and\nactions.  To offer at the restoring of that would indeed be a wild\nproject: it would be to dig up foundations: to destroy at one blow all\nthe wit and half the learning of the kingdom, to break the entire frame\nand constitution of things, to ruin trade, extinguish arts and\nsciences, with the professors of them; in short, to turn our courts,\nexchanges, and shops into deserts; and would be full as absurd as the\nproposal of Horace, where he advises the Romans all in a body, to leave\ntheir city, and seek a new seat in some remote part of the world, by\nway of cure for the corruption of their manners.'--DEAN SWIFT, _An\nArgument to Prove that the Abolishing of Christianity in England may,\nas things now stand, be attended with some Inconveniences_.\n\n\n\n{220}\n\nAPPENDIX II\n\nWhile the state of our race is such as to need all our mutual\ndevotedness, all our aspiration, all our resources of courage, hope,\nfaith, and good cheer, the disciples of the Christian Creed and\nMorality are called upon, day by day, to work out their own salvation\nwith fear and trembling and so forth.  Such exhortations are too low\nfor even the wavering mood and quacked morality of a time of\ntheological suspense and uncertainty.  In the extinction of that\nsuspense and the discrediting of that selfish quacking I see the\nprospect for future generations of a purer and loftier virtue, and a\ntruer and sweeter heroism than divines who preach such self-seeking can\nconceive of.'--HARRIET MARTINEAU, _Autobiography_, vol. ii. p. 461.\n\n\n'Noble morality is classic morality, the morality of Greece, of Rome,\nof Renaissance Italy, of ancient India.  But Christian morality is\nslave morality _in excelsis_.  For the essence of Christian morality is\nthe desire of the individual to be saved: his consciousness of power is\nso small that he lives in hourly peril of damnation and death and\nyearns thus for the arms of some saving grace.'--_F. Nietzsche_, by A.\nR. Orage, p. 53.\n\n{221}\n\n'They [Christians] have never learnt to love, to think, to trust.  They\nhave been nursed and bred and swaddled and fed on fear.  They are\nafraid of death: they are afraid of truth: they are afraid of human\nnature: they are afraid of God....  They deal in a poor kind of old\nwives' fables, of lackadaisical dreams, of discredited sorcery, and\nwhite magic, and call it religion and the holy of holies.  They wander\nabout in a sickly soil of intellectual moonshine, where they mistake\nthe dense and sombre shadows for substances.  They want to stop the\nclocks of time that it may never be day, and to hoodwink the eyes of\nthe nations that they may lead the people as so many blind.'--ROBERT\nBLATCHFORD, _Clarion_, March 3, 1905.\n\n\n\n{222}\n\nAPPENDIX III\n\n'In Georgia, indeed, as the Jesuits had found it in South America, the\nvicinity of a white settlement would have proved the more formidable\nobstacle to the conversion of the Indian.  When Tounchichi was urged to\nlisten to the doctrines of Christianity, he keenly replied, \"Why, there\nare Christians at Savannah! there are Christians at Frederica!\"  Nor\nwas it without good apparent reason that the poor savage exclaimed,\n\"Christian much drunk!  Christian beat men!  Christian tell lies!\nDevil Christian!  Me no Christian!\"'--SOUTHEY, _Life of John Wesley_,\nvol. i. p. 57.\n\n\n'I was then carried in spirit to the mines where poor oppressed people\nwere digging rich treasures for those called Christians, and heard them\nblaspheme the name of Christ, at which I was grieved, for to me His\nname was precious.  I was then informed that these heathens were told\nthat those who oppressed them were the followers of Christ, and they\nsaid among themselves, \"If Christ directed them to use us in this sort,\nthis Christ is a cruel tyrant.\"'--_Journal of John Woolman_, p. 264.\n\n\n\n{223}\n\nAPPENDIX IV\n\n'What many upright and ardent souls have rejected is a misconception, a\ncaricature, a subjective Christianity of their own, a traditional\ndelusion, which no more resembles real Christianity than the\nconventional Christ of the painted church window resembles Jesus Christ\nof Nazareth.  It is true that at this moment the great majority of the\npeople of this country never go to any place of worship, and this is\nyet more the case on the Continent of Europe.  Does it in the least\ndegree indicate that the masses of the European nations have weighed\nChristianity in the balance and found it wanting?  Nothing of the sort.\nThe overwhelming majority of them have not the faintest conception of\nwhat Christianity is.  I myself have met a great number of so-called\n\"Agnostics\" and \"Atheists\" in our universities, among our working-men,\nand in society, but I have never yet met one who had rejected the\nChristianity of Christ.'--HUGH PRICE HUGHES, Preface to _Ethical\nChristianity_.\n\n\n\n{224}\n\nAPPENDIX V\n\n'Wheresoever Christianity has breathed it has accelerated the movement\nof humanity.  It has quickened the pulses of life, it has stimulated\nthe incentives of thought, it has turned the passions into peace, it\nhas warmed the heart into brotherhood, it has fanned the imagination\ninto genius, it has freshened the soul into purity.  The progress of\nChristian Europe has been the progress of mind over matter.  It has\nbeen the progress of intellect over force, of political right over\narbitrary power, of human liberty over the chains of slavery, of moral\nlaw over social corruption, of order over anarchy, of enlightenment\nover ignorance, of life over death.  As we survey this spectacle of the\npast, we are impressed that this study of history is the strongest\nevidence for God.  We hear no argument from design but we feel the\nbreath of the Designer.  We see the universal life moulding the\nindividual lives, the one Will dominating many wills, the Infinite\nWisdom utilising the finite folly, the changeless truth permeating the\nrestless error, the boundless beneficence bringing blessing out of\nall....  And what shall we say of the future? ... Ours is a position in\nsome respects analogous to that of the mediaeval world: the landmarks\nof the past are fading, the lights in the future are but dimly seen.\nYet it is the study of the landmarks that helps us to wait for the\nlight, and our highest hope is born of memory.  In the view {225} of\nthat retrospect, we cannot long despair.  We may have moments of\nheart-sickness when we look exclusively at the present hour: we may\nhave times of despondency when we measure only what the eye can see.\nBut looking on the accumulated results of bygone ages as they lie open\nto the gaze of history, the scientific conclusion at which we must\narrive is this, that the course of Christianity shall be, or has been,\nthe path of a shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect\nday.'--G. MATHESON, _Growth of the Spirit of Christianity_ (chap,\nxxxviii., 'Dawn of a New Day').\n\n\n\n{226}\n\nAPPENDIX VI\n\n'Shadows and figments as they appear to us to be in themselves, these\nattempts to provide a substitute for Religion are of the highest\nimportance, as showing that men of great powers of mind, who have\nthoroughly broken loose not only from Christianity but from natural\nReligion, and in some cases placed themselves in violent antagonism to\nboth, are still unable to divest themselves of the religious sentiment\nor to appease its craving for satisfaction.\n\n'That the leaders of the anti-theological movement at the present day\nare immoral, nobody but the most besotted fanatic would insinuate: no\ncandid antagonist would deny that some of them are in every respect the\nvery best of men....  But what is to prevent the withdrawal of the\ntraditional sanction from producing its natural effect upon the\nmorality of the mass of mankind? ...  Rate the practical effect of\nreligious beliefs as low and that of social influences as high as you\nmay, there can surely be no doubt that morality has received some\nsupport from the authority of an inward monitor regarded as the voice\nof God....\n\n'The denial of the existence of God and of a future state, in a word,\nis the dethronement of Conscience: and society will pass, to say the\nleast, through a dangerous interval, before social conscience can fill\nthe vacant throne.'--GOLDWIN SMITH, 'Proposed Substitutes for\nReligion,' _Macmillan's Magazine_, vol. xxxvii.\n\n\n\n{227}\n\nAPPENDIX VII\n\n'It no less takes two to deliver the game of Duty from trivial pretence\nand give it an earnest interest.  How can I look up to myself as the\nhigher that reproaches me? issue commands to myself which I dare not\ndisobey? ask forgiveness from myself for sins which myself has\ncommitted? surrender to myself with a martyr's sacrifice? and so\nthrough all the drama of moral conflict and enthusiasm between myself\nin a mask and myself in _propria persona_?  How far are these\nsemblances, these battles in the clouds, to carry their mimicry of\nreality?  Are we to _worship_ the self-ideality? to _pray_ to an empty\nimage in the air? to trust in sorrow a creature of thought which is but\na phenomenon of sorrow?  No, if religious communion is reduced to a\nmonologue, its essence is extinct and its soul is gone.  It is a living\nrelation, or it is nothing: a response to the Supreme Reality.  And\nvainly will you search for your spiritual dynamics without the Rock\nEternal for your [Greek] _pou sto_'--JAMES MARTINEAU, Essays iv. 282,\n_Ideal Substitutes for God_.\n\n\n\n{228}\n\nAPPENDIX VIII\n\n'It is an awful hour--let him who has passed through it say how\nawful--when life has lost its meaning and seems shrivelled into a\nspan--when the grave appears to be the end of all, human goodness\nnothing but a name, and the sky above this universe a dead expanse,\nblack with the void from which God himself has disappeared.  In that\nfearful loneliness of spirit ... I know but one way in which a man may\ncome forth from his agony scathless: it is by holding fast to those\nthings which are certain still--the grand, simple landmarks of morality.\n\n'In the darkest hour through which a human soul can pass, whatever else\nis doubtful, this at least is certain.  If there be no God and no\nfuture state yet even then it is better to be generous than selfish,\nbetter to be chaste than licentious, better to be true than false,\nbetter to be brave than to be a coward.  Blessed beyond all earthly\nblessedness is the man who, in the tempestuous darkness of the soul,\nhas dared to hold fast to these venerable landmarks.  Thrice blessed is\nhe who, when all is drear and cheerless within and without, when his\nteachers terrify him and his friends shrink from him, has obstinately\nclung to moral good.  Thrice blessed, because his night shall pass into\nclear bright day.'--F. W. ROBERTSON, _Lectures, Addresses, etc._, p. 49.\n\n\n\n{229}\n\nAPPENDIX IX\n\n'Let me say at once that if after the elimination of all untruths from\nChristianity, we could build a belief in God and Immortality on the\nresidue, we should then have a far more powerful incentive to right\nconduct than anything that I am about to urge.'--PHILIP VIVIAN,\n_Churches and Modern Thought_, p. 323.\n\n\n\n{230}\n\nAPPENDIX X\n\n'Without prejudice, what would be the effect upon modern civilisation\nif the Divine Ideal should vanish from modern thought?\n\n'It would be presumptuous to attempt a description, rather because it\nis so hard to picture ourselves and our outlook deprived of what we\nhave held during thousands of generations, our very _raison d'etre_,\nthan because we cannot calculate at least a part of what would have to\nhappen.  Without pretending to undertake that exercise, it may not be\ntoo bold to conclude definitely, what has been suggested\nargumentatively throughout: namely, that moral goodness, as we trace it\nin the past, as we enjoy it in the present, as we reckon upon it in the\nfuture, would be found undesirable and therefore impracticable.  A new\n\"morality\" would doubtless take its place and set up a new ideal of\ngoodness; but the former would no more represent the elements we so far\ncall moral than the latter would embody the conceptions we now call\ngood: the more logically the inevitable system were followed up, the\nmore progressively would moral inversion be realised.\n\n'It does not seem credible that the new morality could escape being\negoistic and hedonistic, and these principles alone would dictate\ncomplete reversal of all our present notions as to what is noble, what\nis useful, what is good.  An egoist hedonism that should not be selfish\nand sensual is a fond {231} superstition; it would have to be both and\nfrankly.  All the prophylactic expedients whereby a reciprocal egoism\nmust safeguard its sensuous rights would certainly be there; and they\nrepresent in spirit and in practice whatever we have learned to\nconsider execrable.  We do not require Professor Haeckel[1] to inform\nus, with the triumphal rhetoric that accompanies a grand new discovery,\nof the prudential homicide which is to confer a supreme blessing upon\nhumanity, for it has raged throughout antiquity, and still stalks\nabroad in daylight wherever the kingdom of men is not also the kingdom\nof Christ.  Ten minutes' thought is sufficient to convince any rational\nman or woman what must inevitably follow in a world of animal\nrationalism, where no souls are immortal, where the human will is the\nsupreme will and there is eternal peace in the grave.  It could\nscarcely transpire otherwise than that \"euthanasia\" should replace care\nof the chronic sick and indigent aged; that infanticide should be in a\nlarge category of circumstances encouraged, and in some compelled; that\nsuicide should offer a rational escape from all serious ills, leaving a\ndoor ever hospitably ajar to receive the body bankrupt in its capacity\nfor sensual enjoyment, the only enjoyment henceforth worthy of the\nname.  These are the \"virtues\" under the new morality; there are other\nthings of which it were not well to speak.  Imagination turns its back.\nIn a world that has never been without its gods, among human creatures\nwho have never existed without a conscience, deeds have been done and\nhorrors have been practised through centuries, through ages, that make\nannals read like ogre-tales and books of travels like the works of\nmorbid novelists; and the worst always goes unrecorded.  What then\nought we to anticipate for a world yielding obedience to nothing\nloftier {232} than the human intellect, seeking no prize obtainable\noutside the individual life time, logically incapable of any\ngratification outside the individual body, convinced of nothing save\neternal oblivion in the ever-nearing and inevitable grave, and reposed\non the calm assurance that \"goodness\" and \"badness,\" \"virtue\" and\n\"vice\" (whatever these terms may then correspond to) are recompensed,\nindifferently, by nothing better and nothing worse than physical animal\ndeath?'--JASPER B. HUNT, B.D., _Good without God: Is it Possible_? p.\n51.\n\n\n\n[1] See _The Wonders of Life_, chap. v., popular translation, and other\nworks.\n\n\n\n{233}\n\nAPPENDIX XI\n\n'When we say that God is personal, we do not mean that He is localised\nby mutually related organs; that He is hampered by the physical\nconditions of human personality.  We mean that He is conscious of\ndistinctness from all other beings, of moral relation to all living\nthings, and of power to control both from without and from within the\naction of every atom and of every world.  This is what we mean by\npersonality in God.  It is not a materialistic idea.  It is essentially\nspiritual.  It is a breakwater against the destruction of the very\nthought of God, or the submersion of it in the mere processes of\neternal evolution.  There is a Pantheism which obliterates every trace\nof Divine personality, which takes from God consciousness, will,\naffection, emotion, desire, presiding and over-ruling intelligence.\nBut such Pantheism is better known as Atheism.  It destroys the only\nGod who can be a refuge and a strength in time of trouble.  It\nannihilates that mighty conscience which drives the workers of iniquity\ninto darkness and the shadow of death, if possible, to hide themselves.\nIt closes the Divine Ear against the prayer of faith.  It abolishes all\nsympathy, all communion between the Father and the children.  It makes\nGod not the world's life, but the world's grave.  Therefore, against\nall such Pantheism our being revolts.'--PETER S. MENZIES, _Sermons_\n('Christian Pantheism').\n\n\n\n{234}\n\nAPPENDIX XII\n\n'There is an Old Testament Pantheism speaking unmistakably out of the\nlips of the Prophets and the Psalmists, ... so interwoven with their\ndeepest thoughts of God, that any hesitation to receive it would have\nbeen traced by them most probably to purely heathen conditions of\nthought, which ascribes to every divinity a limited function, a\nseparate home, and a restricted authority....  But undoubtedly the most\nunequivocal and outspoken Pantheist in the Bible is St. Paul.  He\nspeaks in that character to the Athenians, affirming all men to be the\noffspring of God, and, as if this were not a sufficiently close bond of\naffinity, adding, \"In Him we live and move and have our being.\"  His\nPantheistic eschatology casts a radiance over the valley of the shadow\nof death, which makes the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians one of the\nmost precious gifts of Divine inspiration which the holy volume\ncontains.  \"And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall\nthe Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him,\nthat God may be all and all.\"  Nor, if he had wished to administer a\ndaring shock to the ultra-Calvinism of our own Confessional theology,\ncould he have uttered a sentiment more hard to reconcile with any view\nof the Universe that is not Pantheistic than that contained in the 32nd\nverse of the present chapter: \"For God hath concluded them all in\nunbelief that He might have mercy upon all.\"  It {235} is quite clear\nin the face of all this Scripture evidence that there is a form of\nPantheism which is not only innocent, defensible, justifiable, but\nwhich we are bound to teach as of the essence of all true theology.\nNothing could be more childish than that blind horror of Pantheism\nwhich shudders back from it as the most poisonous form of rank\ninfidelity.'--PETER S. MENZIES, _Sermons_ ('Christian Pantheism'),\n\n\n\n{236}\n\nAPPENDIX XIII\n\n'Pantheism gives noble expression to the truth of God's presence in all\nthings, but it cannot satisfy the religious consciousness: it cannot\ngive it escape from the limitations of the world, or guarantee personal\nimmortality or (what is most important) give any adequate\ninterpretation to sin, or supply any adequate remedy for it....\nChristian theology is the harmony of Pantheism and Deism.  On the one\nhand Christianity believes all that the Pantheist believes of God's\npresence in all things.  \"In Him,\" we believe, \"we live and move and\nare; in Him all things have their coherence.\"  All the beauty of the\nworld, all its truths, all its goodness, are but so many modes under\nwhich God is manifested, of whose glory Nature is the veil, of whose\nword it is the expression, whose law and reason it embodies.  But God\nis not exhausted in the world, nor dependent upon it: He exists\neternally in His Triune Being, self-sufficing, self-subsistent....  God\nis not only in Nature as its life, but He transcends it as its Creator,\nits Lord--in its moral aspect--its Judge.  So it is that Christianity\nenjoys the riches of Pantheism without its inherent weakness on the\nmoral side, without making God dependent on the world, as the world is\non God.'--BISHOP GORE, _The Incarnation of the Son of God_, p. 136.\n\n\n\n{237}\n\nAPPENDIX XIV\n\n'The Supreme Power on this petty earth can be nothing else but the\nHumanity, which, ever since fifty thousand--it may be one hundred and\nfifty thousand--years has slowly but inevitably conquered for itself\nthe predominance of all living things on this earth, and the mastery of\nits material resources.  It is the collective stream of Civilization,\noften baffled, constantly misled, grievously sinning against itself\nfrom time to time, but in the end victorious; winning certainly no\nheaven, no millennium of the saints, but gradually over great epochs\nrising to a better and a better world.  This Humanity is not all the\nhuman beings that are or have been.  It is a living, growing, and\npermanent Organism in itself, as Spencer and modern philosophy\nestablish.  It is the active stream of Human Civilization, from which\nmany drop out into that oblivion and nullity which is the true and only\nHell.'--F. HARRISON, _Creed of a Lagman_, p. 72.\n\n\n\n{238}\n\nAPPENDIX XV\n\nMr. Frederic Harrison's Creed 'is open to every objection which he so\njustly brings against what he regards as Mr. Spencer's Creed.  These\nreasons are broad, common, and familiar.  So far as I know they never\nhave been, and I do not believe they ever will be, answered.  The first\nobjection is that Humanity with a capital H (Mr. Harrison's God) is\nneither better nor worse fitted to be a God than his Unknowable with a\ncapital U.  They are as much alike as six and half-a-dozen.  Each is a\nbarren abstraction to which any one an attach any meaning he likes.\nHumanity, as used by Mr. Harrison, is not an abstract name for those\nmatters in which all human beings as such resemble each other, as, for\ninstance, a human form and articulate speech....  Humanity is a general\nname for all human beings who, in various ways, have contributed to the\nimprovement of the human race.  The Positivist calendar which\nappropriates every day in the year for the commemoration of one or more\nof these benefactors of mankind is an attempt to give what a lawyer\nwould call \"further and better particulars\" of the word.  If this, or\nanything like this, be the meaning of Mr. Harrison's God, I must say\nthat he, she, or it appears to me quite as ill-fitted for worship as\nthe Unknowable.  How can a man worship an indefinite number of dead\npeople, most of whom are unknown to him even by name, and many of whose\ncharacters {239} were exceedingly faulty, besides which the facts as to\ntheir lives are most imperfectly known?  How can he in any way combine\nthese people into a single object of thought?  An object of worship\nmust surely have such a degree of unity that it is possible to think\nabout it as distinct from other things, as much unity at least as the\nEnglish nation, the Roman Catholic Church, the Great Western Railway.\nNo doubt these are abstract terms, but they are concrete enough for\npractical purposes.  Every one understands what is meant when it is\nasserted that the English nation is at war or at peace; that the Pope\nis the head of the Roman Catholic Church; that the Great Western\nRailway has declared a dividend; but what is Humanity?  What can any\none definitely assert or deny about it?  How can any one meaning be\naffixed to the word so that one person can be said to use it properly\nand another to abuse it?  It seems to me that it is as Unknowable as\nthe Unknowable itself, and just as well, and just as ill, fitted to be\nan object of worship.'--SIR JAMES FITZJAMES STEPHEN, 'The Unknowable\nand Unknown,' _Nineteenth Century_, June 1884.\n\n\n\n{240}\n\nAPPENDIX XVI\n\n'Deism and Pantheism are both so irrational, so utterly inadequate to\nexplain the simplest facts of our moral and spiritual life that neither\nof them can long hold mankind together.  Positivism, which has made a\nsystematic and memorable attempt to fill the gap, itself bears witness\nto the craving of human nature for some stronger bond than such systems\ncan supply; while its appreciation of the necessity of Religion gives\nit an importance not possessed by mere Agnosticism.  Yet it is\nimpossible to look at an encyclopaedic attempt to grasp all knowledge\nand all history, such as that made by the founder of Positivism,\nwithout a deep, oppressive sadness....\n\n'Can men heap fact upon fact and connect science with science in a\nsplendid hierarchy and find no better end than this?  Is such a review\nto come to this, that we must worship either actual humanity with all\nits meanness and wickedness, or ideal humanity which does not yet\nexist, and, if this world is all in all, may never come into being? ...\nFor ideal humanity, however moral and enlightened, if unaided by God,\nas the Posivitist holds, is still earth-bound and sense-bound....  We\nare told that it is common sense to recognise that much is beyond us.\nPerfectly true.  But it is not common sense to worship an ignorant and\nweak humanity which certainly made nothing, and has in itself no\nassurance {241} of continuance in the future, nay rather, a very clear\nprobability of destruction, if simply left to itself.\n\n'What Positivism surely needs to give it hope and consistency is the\ndoctrine of the Logos, of the Eternal Word and Reason, the Creator,\nOrderer, and Sustainer of all things, Who has taken a stainless human\nnature that He might make men capable of all knowledge.  This Divine\nHumanity of the Logos, drawing mankind into Himself, is indeed worthy\nof all worship.  In loving Him, we learn really what it is to \"live for\nothers.\"  In looking to Him we cease from selfishness and pride.  Such\na worship of humanity is not a mere baseless hope, but a reality\nappearing in the very midst of history, a reality apprehended by Faith\nindeed, but by a Faith always proving itself to those, and by those,\nwho hold it fast in Love.  There is room, then, ample room, and a loud\ndemand for the re-establishment of a Christian Philosophy based upon\nthe Incarnation.'--JOHN WORDSWORTH (Bishop of Salisbury), _The One\nReligion_, pp. 307-309.\n\n\n\n{242}\n\nAPPENDIX XVII\n\nThe invariable laws under which Humanity is placed have received\nvarious names at different periods.  Destiny, Fate, Necessity, Heaven,\nProvidence, all are so many names of one and the same conception: the\nlaws which man feels himself under, and that without the power of\nescaping from them.  We claim no exemption from the common lot.  We\nonly wish to draw out into consciousness the instinctive acceptance of\nthe race, and to modify the spirit in which we regard them.  We accept:\nso have all men.  We obey: so have all men.  We venerate: so have some\nin past ages or in other countries.  We add but one other term--we\nlove.  We would perfect our submission and so reap the full benefits of\nsubmission in the improvement of our hearts and tempers.  We take in\nconception the sum of the conditions of existence, and we give them an\nideal being and a definite home in space, the second great creation\nwhich completes the central one of Humanity.  In the bosom of space we\nplace the world, and we conceive of the world and this our Mother Earth\nas gladly welcomed to that bosom with the simplest and purest love, and\nwe give our love in return.\n\n  Thou art folded, thou art lying\n  In the light which is undying.\n\n\n'Thus we complete the Trinity of our religion, Humanity, the World, and\nSpace.  So completed we recognise power to {243} give unity and\ndefiniteness to our thoughts, purity and warmth to our affections,\nscope and vigour to our activity.  We recognise its powers to regulate\nour whole being, to give us that which it has so long been the aim of\nall religion to give--internal union.  We recognise its power to raise\nus above ourselves and by intensifying the action of our unselfish\ninstincts to bear down unto their due subordination our selfishness.\nWe see in it yet unworked treasures.  We count not ourselves to have\napprehended but we press forward to the prize of our high calling.  But\neven now whilst its full capabilities are unknown to us, before we have\napprehended, we find enough in it to guide and strengthen us.'--'_The\nNew Religion in its Attitude towards the Old_: A Sermon preached at\nSouth Field, Wandsworth, Wednesday, 19th Moses 71 (19th January 1859),\non the anniversary of the birth of Auguste Comte, 19th January 1798, by\nRICHARD CONGREVE.'  J. Chapman: 8 King William Street, Strand, London.\n\n\n\n{244}\n\nAPPENDIX XVIII\n\n'We have compared Positivism where it is thought to be strongest with\nChristianity where it is thought to be weakest.  And if the result of\nthe comparison even then has been unfavourable to Positivism, how will\nthe account stand if every element in Christianity be taken into\nconsideration?  The religion of humanity seems specially fitted to meet\nthe tastes of that comparatively small and prosperous class who are\nunwilling to leave the dry bones of Agnosticism wholly unclothed with\nany living tissue of religious emotion, and who are at the same time\nfortunate enough to be able to persuade themselves that they are\ncontributing, or may contribute, by their individual efforts to the\nattainment of some great ideal for mankind.  But what has it to say to\nthe more obscure multitude who are absorbed, and wellnigh overwhelmed,\nin the constant struggle with daily needs and narrow cares, who have\nbut little leisure or inclination to consider the precise role they are\ncalled on to play in the great drama of \"humanity,\" and who might in\nany case be puzzled to discover its interest or its importance?  Can it\nassure them that there is no human being so insignificant as not to be\nof infinite worth in the eyes of Him Who created the Heavens, or so\nfeeble but that his action may have consequence of infinite moment long\nafter this material system shall have crumbled into nothingness?  Does\nit offer consolation to those who are in grief, hope to those who {245}\nare bereaved, strength to the weak, forgiveness to the sinful, rest to\nthose who are weary and heavy laden?  If not, then whatever be its\nmerits, it is no rival to Christianity.  It cannot penetrate or vivify\nthe inmost life of ordinary humanity.  There is in it no nourishment\nfor ordinary human souls, no comfort for ordinary human sorrow, no help\nfor ordinary human weakness.  Not less than the crudest irreligion does\nit leave us men divorced from all communion with God, face to face with\nthe unthinking energies of Nature which gave us birth, and into which,\nif supernatural religion be indeed a dream, we must after a few\nfruitless struggles be again resolved.'--RIGHT HON. ARTHUR J. BALFOUR,\n_The Religion of Humanity_.\n\n\n\n{246}\n\nAPPENDIX XIX\n\n'Truly if Humanity has no higher prospects than those which await it\nfrom the service of its modern worshippers its prospects are dark\nindeed.  Its \"normal state\" is a vague and distant future.  But better\nthings may yet be hoped for when the true Light from Heaven shall\nenlighten every man, and the love of goodness shall everywhere come\nfrom the love of God, and nobleness of life from the perfect Example of\nthe Lord.'--JOHN TULLOCH, D.D. LL.D., _Modern Theories in Philosophy\nand Religion_, p. 86.\n\n\n\n{247}\n\nAPPENDIX XX\n\nMr. Frederic Harrison came under the influence of both the Newmans.\n'John Henry Newman led me on to his brother Francis, whose beautiful\nnature and subtle intelligence I now began to value.  His _Phases of\nFaith, The Soul, The Hebrew Monarchy_ deeply impressed me.  I was not\nprepared either to accept all this heterodoxy nor yet to reject it; and\nI patiently waited till an answer could be found.'--_The Creed of a\nLayman_.\n\n\n\n{248}\n\nAPPENDIX XXI\n\nEven Mr. Voysey admits the constraining power of the Cross:\n\n'That is still the noblest, most sublime picture in the whole Bible,\nwhere the Christ is hanging on the Cross, and the tears and blood flow\ntrickling down, and the last words heard from His lips are \"Father,\nforgive them, for they know not what they do.\"  That love and pity will\nfor ever endure as the type and symbol of what is most Divine in the\nheart of man.  Thank God! it has been repeated and repeated in the\nlives and deaths of millions besides the Christ of Calvary.  But\nwherever found it still claims the admiration, and wins the homage of\nevery human heart, and is the crowning glory of the human race.--C.\nVOYSEY, _Religion for All Mankind_, p. 105.\n\n\n\n{249}\n\nAPPENDIX XXII\n\n'Not only the Syrian superstition must be attacked, but also the belief\nin a personal God which engenders a slavish and oriental condition of\nthe mind, and the belief in a posthumous reward which engenders a\nselfish and solitary condition of the heart.  These beliefs are,\ntherefore, injurious to human nature.  They lower its dignity, they\narrest its development, they isolate its affections.  We shall not deny\nthat many beautiful sentiments are often mingled with the faith in a\npersonal Deity, and with the hopes of happiness in a future state; yet\nwe maintain that, however refined they may appear, they are selfish at\nthe core, and that if removed they will be replaced by sentiments of a\nnobler and purer kind.'--WINWOOD READE, _Martyrdom of Man_, p. 543.\n\n\n\n{250}\n\nAPPENDIX XXIII\n\n'There is a servile deference paid, even by Christians, to incompetent\njudges of Christianity.  They abjectly look to men of the world, to\nscholars, to statesmen, for testimonies to the everlasting and\nself-evidencing verities of heaven!  And if they can gather up, from\nthe writings or speeches of these men, some patronising notices of\nreligion, some incidental compliment to the civilising influence of the\nBible, or to the aesthetic proprieties of worship, or to the moral\nsublimity of the character or gospel of Christ, they forthwith proclaim\nthese tributes as lending some great confirmation to the Truth of GOD!\nSo we persist in asking, not \"Is it true? true to our souls?\" or, \"Has\nthe Lord said it?\" but, \"What say the learned men, the influential men,\nthe eloquent men?\"  Shame upon these time-serving concessions, as\nunmanly as they are fallacious.  Go back to the hovels, rather, and\ntake the witnessing of the illiterate souls whose hearts, waiting there\nin poverty or pain, or under the shadow of some great affliction, the\nLord Himself hath opened.'--F. D. HUNTINGDON, _Christian Believing and\nLiving_.\n\n\n\n{251}\n\nAPPENDIX XXIV\n\n'It is foreign to our purpose to discuss the various theories which\nhave been advanced to explain the genesis and power of the Christian\nReligion from the cynical Gibbon to the sentimental Renan and the\nRationalist Strauss.  One remark may be permitted.  It has been our lot\nto read an immense amount of literature on this subject, and with no\nbias in the orthodox direction, we are bound to admit that no theory\nhas yet appeared which from purely natural causes explains the\nremarkable life and marvellous influence of the Founder of\nChristianity.'--HECTOR MACPHERSON, _Books to Read and How to Head Them_.\n\n\n\n{252}\n\nAPPENDIX XXV\n\nThe Song of a Heathen Sojourning in Galilee, A.D. 32.\n\n  If Jesus Christ is a man,\n    And only a man, I say\n  That of all mankind I cleave to Him,\n    And to Him will I cleave alway.\n\n  If Jesus Christ is a God,\n    And the only God, I swear\n  I will follow Him through heaven and hell,\n    The earth, the sea, and the air!\n\n        RICHARD WATSON GILDER.\n\n\n\n{253}\n\nAPPENDIX XXVI\n\n'I distinguish absolutely between the character of Jesus and the\ncharacter of Christianity--in other words between Jesus of Nazareth and\nJesus the Christ.  Shorn of all supernatural pretensions, Jesus emerges\nfrom the great mass of human beings as an almost perfect type of\nsimplicity, veracity, and natural affection.  \"Love one another\" was\nthe Alpha and Omega of His teaching, and He carried out the precept\nthrough every hour of His too brief life....  But how blindly, how\nfoolishly my critics have interpreted the inner spirit of my argument,\nhow utterly have they failed to realise that the whole aim of the work\nis to justify Jesus against the folly, the cruelty, the infamy, the\nignorance of the creed upbuilt upon His grave.  I show in cipher, as it\nwere, that those who crucified Him once would crucify Him again, were\nHe to return amongst us.  I imply that among the first to crucify Him\nwould be the members of His Own Church.  But nowhere surely do I imply\nthat His soul, in its purely personal elements, in its tender and\nsympathising humanity was not the very divinest that ever wore earth\nabout it.'--ROBERT BUCHANAN in Letter of January 1892 to _Daily\nChronicle_ regarding his poem _The Wandering Jew_.  _Robert Buchanan:\nHis Life, Life's Work, and Life's Friendships_, by Harriett Jay, pp.\n274-5.\n\n\n\n{254}\n\nAPPENDIX XXVII\n\n'I do not believe I have any personal immortality.  I am part of an\nimmortality perhaps, but that is different.  I am not the continuing\nthing.  I personally am experimental, incidental.  I feel I have to do\nsomething, a number of things no one else could do, and then I am\nfinished, and finished altogether.  Then my substance returns to the\ncommon lot.  I am a temporary enclosure for a temporary purpose: that\nserved, and my skull and teeth, my idiosyncrasy and desire will\ndisperse, I believe, like the timbers of the booth after a fair.'--H.\nG. WELLS, _First and Last Things_, p. 80.\n\n\n\n{255}\n\nAPPENDIX XXVIII\n\n'The estate of man upon this earth of ours may in course of time be\nvastly improved.  So much seems to be promised by the recent\nachievements of Science, whose advance is in geometrical progression,\neach discovery giving birth to several more.  Increase of health and\nextension of life by sanitary, dietetic, and gymnastic improvement;\nincrease of wealth by invention and of leisure by the substitution of\nmachinery for labour: more equal distribution of wealth with its\ncomforts and refinements; diffusion of knowledge; political\nimprovement; elevation of the domestic affections and social\nsentiments; unification of mankind and elimination of war through\nascendency of reason over passion--all these things may be carried to\nan indefinite extent, and may produce what in comparison with the\npresent estate of man would be a terrestrial paradise.  Selection and\nthe merciless struggle for existence may be in some measure superseded\nby selection of a more scientific and merciful kind.  Death may be\ndeprived at all events of its pangs.  On the other hand, the horizon\ndoes not appear to be clear of cloud....  Let our fancy suppose the\nmost chimerical of Utopias realised in a commonwealth of man.  Mortal\nlife prolonged to any conceivable extent is but a span.  Still over\nevery festal board in the community of terrestrial bliss will be cast\nthe shadow of approaching death; and the sweeter life becomes the more\nbitter death will be.  {256} The more bitter it will be at least to the\nordinary man, and the number of philosophers like John Stuart Mill is\nsmall.'--GOLDWIN SMITH: _Guesses at the Riddle of Existence_ ('Is There\nAnother Life?').\n\n'In return for all of which they have deprived us, some prophets of\nmodern science are disposed to show us in the future a City of God\n_minus_ God, a Paradise _minus_ the Tree of Life, a Millennium with\neducation to perfect the intellect, and sanitary improvements to\nemancipate the body from a long catalogue of evils.  Sorrow no doubt\nwill not be abolished; immortality will not be bestowed.  But we shall\nhave comfortable and perfectly drained houses to be wretched in.  The\nnews of our misfortunes, the tidings that turn the hair white, and\nbreak the strong man's heart will be conveyed to us from the ends of\nthe earth by the agency of a telegraphic system without a flaw.  The\nclosing eye may cease to look to the land beyond the River; but in our\nlast moments we shall be able to make a choice between patent furnaces\nfor the cremation of our remains, and coffins of the most charming\ndescription for their preservation when desiccated.'--Archbishop\nALEXANDER: _Witness of the Psalms to Christ and Christianity_, p. 48.\n\n\n\n{257}\n\nAUTHORITIES CONSULTED\n\n\nAbbott, E. A., _Through Nature to Christ_.\n\nArmstrong, E. A., _Back to Jesus; Man's Knowledge of God; Agnosticism\nand Theism in the Nineteenth Century_.\n\nArthur, W., _God without Religion; Religion without God_.\n\nAveling, F. (edited by), _Westminster Lectures_.\n\n\nBalfour, A. J., _Religion of Humanity; Foundations of Belief_.\n\nBallard, F., _Clarion Fallacies; Miracles of Unbelief_.\n\n_Barker, Joseph, Life of_.\n\nBarry, W., _Heralds of Revolt_.\n\nBartlett, R. E., _The Letter and the Spirit_.\n\nBesant, Annie, _Esoteric Christianity_.\n\nBlatchford, R., _God and My Neighbour_.\n\nBlau, Paul, '_Wenn ihr Mich Kennetet_.'\n\nBousset, W., _Jesus; What is Religion?; The Faith of a Modern\nProtestant_.\n\nBrace, G. Loring, _Gesta Christi_.\n\nBremond, H., 'Christus Vivit' (Epilogue of _L'Inquietude Religieuse_).\n\nBroglie, L'Abbe Paul de, _Problemes et Conclusions; La Morale sans\nDieu_.\n\nBrooks, Phillips, Bishop, _The Influence of Jesus_.\n\nButler, Bishop, _The Analogy of Religion_.\n\n\n{258}\n\nCaird, E., _The Evolution of Religion; The Social Philosophy and\nReligion of Comte_.\n\nCaird, J., _Fundamental Ideas of Christianity_.\n\nCairns, D. S., _Christianity in the Modern World_.\n\nCarey, Vivian, _Parsons and Pagans_.\n\nCaro, E., _L'Idee de Dieu et ses Nouveaux Critiques; Etudes Morales;\nProblemes de Morale Sociale_.\n\nChesterton, G. K., _Heretics; Orthodoxy_.\n\nChurch, K. W., _Gifts of Civilization; Pascal and other Sermons_.\n\nClarke, J. Freeman, _Steps to Belief_.\n\nCobbe, Frances Power, _A Faithless World; Broken Lights; Autobiography_.\n\nCoit, Stanton, _National Idealism and a State Church_.\n\nComte, Auguste, _Catechism of Positive Religion_ (translated by Richard\nCongreve).\n\n_Contentio Veritatis_.\n\nConway, Moncure D., _The Earthward Pilgrimage_.\n\nCraufurd, A. H., _Christian Instincts and Modern Doubt_.\n\nCrooker, J. H., _The Supremacy of Jesus_.\n\n\nD'Alviella, G., _Revolution Religieuse Contemporaine_.\n\nDavies, O. Maurice, _Heterodox London_.\n\nDavies, Llewelyn, _Morality according to the Lord's Supper_.\n\n_Do we Believe_? (Correspondence from _Daily Telegraph_.)\n\nDrawbridge, C. L., _Is Religion Undermined_?\n\nDrummond, J., _Via, Veritas, Vita_.\n\nDu Bose, W. P., _The Gospel and the Gospels_.\n\n\nEaton, J. R. T., _The Permanence of Christianity_.\n\n\nFaber, Hans, _Das Christentum der Zukunft_.\n\nFairbairn, A. M., _Christ in Modern Theology_.\n\n{259}\n\nFarrar, A. S., _Critical History of Free Thought_.\n\nFarrar, F. W., _Seekers after God; Witness of History to Christ_.\n\nFiske, John, _The Idea of God as Affected by Modern Knowledge; Through\nNature to God; Man's Destiny_.\n\nFitchett, W. H., _Beliefs of Unbelief_.\n\nFlint, R., _Theism; Anti-Theistic Theories_.\n\nFootman, H., _Reasonable Apprehensions and Reassuring Hints_.\n\nFordyce, J., _Aspects of Scepticism_.\n\nForrest, D. W., _The Christ of History and of Experience_.\n\nFrommel, Gaston, _Etudes Religieuses et Sociales; Etudes Morales et\nReligieuses_.\n\n\nGindraux, J., _Le Christ et la Pensee Moderne_ (Translation from\nPfennigsdorf).\n\nGladden, Washington, _How Much is Left of the Old Doctrines_?\n\nGore, O., Bishop, _The Incarnation of the Son of God; The Christian\nCreed_.\n\nGuyau, M., _L'Irreligion de l'Avenir; La Morale sans Sanction_.\n\n\nHaeckel, E., _Riddle of the Universe; The Confession of Faith of a Man\nof Science_.\n\nHarnack, Adolf, _What is Christianity?; Christianity and History_.\n\nHarrison, A. J., _Problems of Christianity and Scepticism_.\n\nHarrison, Frederic, _Memories and Thoughts; The Creed of a Layman_.\n\nHaw, George (edited by), _Religious Doubts of Democracy_.\n\nHenson, H. Hensley, _Popular Rationalism; The Value of the Bible_.\n\nHillis, N. D., _Influence of Christ in Modern Life_.\n\n{260}\n\nHoffmann, F. S., _The Sphere of Religion_.\n\nHunt, Jasper B., _Good without God_.\n\nHunt, John, _Christianity and Pantheism_.\n\nHutton, R. H., _Essays Theological and Literary; Contemporary Thought\nand Thinkers; Aspects of Religious and Scientific Thought_.\n\nHuxley, T. H., _Evolution and Ethics_.\n\n\nIllingworth, J. R., _Personality Human and Divine; Divine Immanence_.\n\n_Is Christianity True_?  (Lectures in Central Hall, Manchester).\n\n\nJastrow, Morris, _The Study of Religion_.\n\nJefferies, Richard, _The Story of my Heart: My Autobiography_.\n\nJones, Harry (edited by), _Some Urgent Questions in Christian Lights_.\n\n\nKutter, Herrmann, _Sie Muessen_.\n\n\nLecky, W. E. H., _History of European Morals_.\n\nLiddon, H. P., _The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; Some\nElements of Religion_.\n\nLilly, W. S., _The Great Enigma; The Claims of Christianity_.\n\nLodge, Sir Oliver, _The Substance of Faith_.\n\nLucas, Bernard, _The Faith of a Christian_.\n\n_Lux Hominum_.\n\n_Lux Mundi_.\n\n\nMaitland, Brownlow, _Theism or Agnosticism; Steps to Faith_.\n\nMallock, W. H., _Reconstruction of Belief_.\n\n{261}\n\nMarson, O. L., _Following of Christ_.\n\nMartin, A. S., 'Christ in Modern Thought' (Hastings's _Dictionary of\nChrist and the Gospels_, Appendix).\n\nMartineau, Harriet, _Autobiography_.\n\nMartineau, James, _Ideal Substitutes for God; A Study of Religion;\nHours of Thought_.\n\nMatheson, G., _Growth of the Spirit of Christianity_.\n\nMatheson, A. Scott, _The Gospel and Modern Substitutes_.\n\nMenzies, Allan, _S. Paul's View of the Divinity of Christ_.\n\nMenzies, P. S., 'Christian Pantheism' (in _Sermons_).\n\nMomerie, A. W., _Belief in God; Immortality; Origin of Evil_.\n\nMonod, Wilfrid, _Aux Croyants et aux Athees; Peut-on rester Chretien_?\n\nMories, A. S., _Haeckel's Contribution to Religion_.\n\nMorison, J. Cotter, _The Service of Man_.\n\nMozoomdar, Protab Chandra, _The Oriental Christ_.\n\nMyers, F. W. H., _Modern Essays_.\n\n\nNaville, Ernest, _Le Pere Celeste; Le Christ; Le Temoignage du Christ\net l'Unite du Monde Chretien_.\n\nNeumann, Arno, _Jesus_.\n\nNewman, F. W., _The Soul: Its Sorrows and Aspirations; Phases of Faith_.\n\nNolloth, C. F., _The Person of our Lord and Recent Thought_.\n\n\nOxenham, H. N., _Essays Ethical and Religious_.\n\n_Oxford House Tracts_.\n\n\nPalmer, W. S., _An Agnostic's Progress; The Church and Modern Men_.\n\nPeile, J. H. F., _The Reproach of the Gospel_.\n\nPfannmueller, Gustav, _Jesus im Urteil der Jahrhunderte_.\n\n{262}\n\nPicard, L'Abbe, _Christianity or Agnosticism?; La Transcendance de\nJesus Christ_.\n\nPicton, J. Allanson, _The Religion of the Universe; Pantheism: Its\nStory and Significance_.\n\nPlumptre, E. H., _Christ and Christendom_.\n\n_Present Day Tracts_ (R. T. S.).\n\nPringle-Pattison, A. Seth, _Man's Place in the Cosmos_.\n\n\nReade, Winwood, _The Martyrdom of Man; The Outcast_.\n\n_Religion and the Modern Mind_ (St. Ninian's Society Lectures).\n\nRenesse, _Jesus Christ and His Apostles and Disciples in the Twentieth\nCentury_.\n\nRobinson, O. H., _Human Nature a Revelation of the Divine; Studies in\nthe Character of Christ_.\n\nRomanes, G. J., _Thoughts on Religion_.\n\n\nSabatier, A., _The Religions of Authority and the Religion of the\nSpirit_.\n\nSanday, W., _Life of Christ in Recent Research_.\n\nSavage, M. J., _Religion for To-day; The Life Beyond_.\n\nSchmiedel, P. W., _Jesus and Modern Criticism_.\n\nSeaver, R. W., _To Christ through Criticism_.\n\n_Secularist's Manual_.\n\nSeeley, J. R., _Ecce Homo; Natural Religion_.\n\nSen, Keshub Chunder, India asks, _Who is Christ_?\n\nSheldon, H. O., _Unbelief in the Nineteenth Century_.\n\nSimpson, P. Carnegie, _The Fact of Christ_.\n\nSmith, Goldwin, _Guesses at the Riddle of Existence; Lectures on the\nStudy of History; The founder of Christianity_.\n\nSmyth, Newman, _Old Faiths in New Light_.\n\nStanley, A. P., 'Theology of the Nineteenth Century' (in _Essays on\nChurch and State_); _Christian Institutions_.\n\n{263}\n\nStephen, J. Fitzjames, 'The Unknowable and Unknown' (_Nineteenth\nCentury_, June 1884); _Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity_.\n\nStephen, Leslie, _An Agnostic's Apology; English Thought in the\nEighteenth Century_.\n\nSwete, H. B. (edited by), _Cambridge Theological Essays_.\n\nSwift, Dean, _The Abolishing of Christianity_.\n\n\n_Topics for the Times_ (S. P. C. K.).\n\nTulloch, J., _Modern Theories in Theology and Philosophy; Movements of\nReligious Thought_.\n\n\nVan Dyke, H., _The Gospel for an Age of Doubt; The Gospel for a World\nof Sin_.\n\nVivian, Philip, _The Churches and Modern Thought_.\n\nVoysey, C., _Religion for All Mankind_.\n\n\nWace, H., _Christianity and Morality_.\n\nWallace, Alfred Russel, _Man's Place in the Universe_.\n\nWarschauer, J., _The New Evangel; Jesus: Seven Questions; Anti-Nunquam;\nJesus or Christ?_\n\nWatkinson, W. L., _Influence of Scepticism on Character_.\n\nWeinel, H., _Jesus im Nevmzehnten Jahrhundert_.\n\nWelsh, R. E., _In Relief of Doubt_.\n\nWells, H. G., _First and Last Things, A Confession of Faith and Rule of\nLife_.\n\nWilson, J. M., _Problems of Religion and Science_.\n\nWimmer, R., _My Struggle for Light_.\n\nWordsworth, John, Bishop, _The One Religion_.\n\n\nYoung, John, _The Christ of History_.\n\n\n\n\n{265}\n\nINDEX\n\n\nAbbott, Edwin A., 117.\n\nAlexander, Archbishop, 256.\n\nAmiel, H. F., 55.\n\nAnthropomorphism, 65, 68, 82.\n\nArnold, Matthew, 208.\n\n\n'Back to Christ,' 212.\n\nBalfour, A. J., 244.\n\nBartlett, R. E., 161.\n\nBesant, Mrs., 197.\n\nBlatchford, Robert, 7, 20, 221.\n\nBrowning, Robert, 65, 200.\n\nBuchanan, Robert, 253.\n\nButler, Bishop, 10, 139.\n\n\nCaird, Principal, 112.\n\nCalendar, Positivist, 108.\n\n_Caliban upon Setebos_, 65.\n\nCarey, Vivian, 6, 26.\n\nChesterton, G. K., 113.\n\nChrist the only Way, 129, 207.\n\n---- the substance of Christianity, 173.\n\nChristianity, influence of, 24, 28.\n\n---- misrepresentation of, 18, 223.\n\nChristians, inconsistency of, 16, 19, 213, 222, 253.\n\n_Christmas Eve_, 200.\n\nChurch, Dean, 9.\n\nClifford, W. K., 103.\n\nCobbe, Frances Power, 144, 149.\n\nCoit, Dr. Stanton, 41.\n\nComte, Auguste, 103.\n\nCongreve, Richard, 115, 242.\n\nConway, Moncure D., 8.\n\nCowper, William, 78.\n\nCriticism, 173.\n\n\nDeism, 139, 143, 164, 236, 240.\n\nDe Vere, Aubrey, 101.\n\n\nEliot, George, 56, 208.\n\nEnemies, witness of, 177.\n\n\nFenelon, 78.\n\nFiske, John, 100.\n\n\nGilder, R. W., 252.\n\nGore, Bishop, 136, 236.\n\nGreat Being of Positivism, 106, 112, 114.\n\n\nHaeckel, 71.\n\nHarrison, Frederic, 84, 96, 102, 108, 110, 237, 238.\n\nHughes, Hugh Price, 223.\n\nHumanity, Christ, the Ideal of, 118.\n\n---- Religion of, 93, 103, 105, 237, 238, 242.\n\nHuntingdon, Bishop, 250.\n\n\nImmortality, denial of, 54, 60, 254.\n\nImpeachments of Christianity, 12, 249.\n\nIncarnation, 48, 96.\n\n\nJefferies, Richard, 73.\n\n\nLaw, William, 78.\n\nLefevre, A., 188.\n\n\nMacpherson, Hector, 251.\n\nMan, 93.\n\nMartineau, Harriet, 220.\n\n---- James, 227.\n\nMaterial Progress, 255, 256.\n\nMatheson, George, 224.\n\nMediation, 157.\n\nMenzies, P. S., 233, 234.\n\nMill, John Stuart, 208.\n\nMontaigne, 23.\n\nMorality and Religion, 33, 39, 146, 229, 230.\n\n---- Religion without, 34.\n\nMozoomdar, P. C., 196.\n\nMyers, F. W. H., 56.\n\n\nNewman, F. W., 144, 247.\n\nNietzsche, 220.\n\n\nPantheism, 65, 81, 233, 234, 236.\n\nPersonality of God, 44, 70, 147, 233.\n\nPicton, J. Allanson, 87.\n\nPope, Alexander, 78.\n\nPositivism, 93, 103, 211.\n\nPrayer, 43.\n\n\nReade, Winwood, 5, 120, 249.\n\nRenan, E., 192.\n\nRoberts, W. Page-, Dean, 112.\n\nRobertson, Frederick William, 118, 228.\n\n\nSabatier, A., 158.\n\nSchleiermacher, 77.\n\nSchmiedel, P. W., 184.\n\nShelley, 13, 98.\n\nSin, Sense of, 86.\n\nSmith, Goldwin, 226, 255.\n\nSpencer, Herbert, 71.\n\nSpinoza, 76.\n\nStanley, Dean, 77.\n\nStephen, Sir J. F., 50, 58, 238.\n\n---- Sir Leslie, 16.\n\nStrauss, D. F., 195.\n\nSwift, Dean, 10, 219.\n\n\nTennyson, 60, 79, 212.\n\n'Theism,' 127, 150, 164.\n\nThomson, James, 78.\n\nTulloch, John, 246.\n\n\nUniqueness of Christ, 199, 252.\n\n\nVivian, Philip, 5, 229.\n\nVoltaire, 139, 168.\n\nVoysey, Rev. Charles, 153, 248.\n\n\nWallace, Alfred Russel, 100.\n\nWarschauer, J., 159, 203.\n\nWatts, Charles, 7.\n\nWells, H. G., 189, 254.\n\nWesley, John, 222.\n\nWimmer, R., 193.\n\nWoolman, John, 222.\n\nWordsworth, John, Bishop, 240.\n\n---- William, 79.\n\n\n\n\n  Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty\n    at the Edinburgh University Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Expositors Library\n\nCloth, 2/- net each volume.\n\n\nTHE NEW EVANGELISM.                    Prof. HENRY DRUMMOND, F.R.S.E.\n\nTHE MIND OF THE MASTER.                Rev. JOHN WATSON, D.D.\n\nTHE TEACHING OF JESUS CONCERNING HIMSELF.  Rev. Prof. JAMES STALKER,\nD.D.\n\nFELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST.                Rev. R. W. DALE, D.D., LL.D.\n\nSTUDIES ON THE NEW TESTAMENT.          Prof. F. GODET, D.D.\n\nTHE LIFE OF THE MASTER.                Rev. JOHN WATSON, D.D.\n\nSTUDIES OF THE PORTRAIT OF CHRIST.--\n  Vol. I.                              Rev. GEORGE MATHESON, D.D.\n\nSTUDIES OF THE PORTRAIT OF CHRIST.--\n  Vol. II.                             Rev. GEORGE MATHESON, D.D.\n\nTHE JEWISH TEMPLE AND THE CHRISTIAN\n  CHURCH.                              Rev. R. W. DALE, D.D., LL.D.\n\nTHE TEN COMMANDMENTS.                  Rev. R. W. DALE, D.D., LL.D.\n\nTHE FACT OF CHRIST.                    Rev. P. CARNEGIE SIMPSON, M.A.\n\nTHE CROSS IN MODERN LIFE.              Rev. J. G. GREENHOUGH, M.A.\n\nHEROES AND MARTYRS OF FAITH.           Prof. A. S. PEAKE, D.D.\n\nA GUIDE TO PREACHERS.                  Principal A. E. GARVIE, M.A.,\nD.D.\n\nMODERN SUBSTITUTES FOR CHRISTIANITY.   Rev. P. McADAM MUIR, D.D.\n\nEPHESIAN STUDIES.                      Right Rev. H. C. G. MOULE, D.D.\n\nTHE UNCHANGING CHRIST.                 Rev. ALEX MCLAREN, D.D., D.LITT.\n\nTHE GOD OF THE AMEN.                   Rev. ALEX MCLAREN, D.D., D.LITT.\n\nTHE ASCENT THROUGH CHRIST.             Rev. E. GRIFFITH JONES, B.A.\n\nSTUDIES ON THE OLD TESTAMENT.          Prof. F. GODET, D.D.\n\n\nLONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON","title":"Modern Substitutes for Christianity","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":41101}