Science,' may have but little in common, so far as belief goes, with those who accept fully and heartily the Christian Creed.

To men with such doubts and suspicions, the Bible is no longer the same book, and Bible-study is not what it used to be. The most distinctive teachings of the Holy Record appear before the eye as if marked by notes of interrogation. Prayer is impossible, for what if God does not hear prayer? What if the very conception of a 'prayer-hearing God,' be but a survival from an age of credulity? How can we pray to a Being whose existence is so out of relation to our lives? The only acceptable prayer must be humble submission to the order of events, and an earnest desire to become more fully acquainted with the world in which we live, move, and have our being.

Need we suggest that all who are in anything like this state of mind, are exposed to peculiar dangers, both intellectual and moral? Our advanced thinkers' are fond of speaking of the paralyzing influence upon the soul of the religious creed of our forefathers. They look down, with feelings more akin to contempt than pity, upon 'the early heaven and happy views ' of many of their brothers and sisters; we would not venture to say that this early heaven and these happy views of life have been all they might have been. There may be not a little sheer credulity in what passes for simple faith; there may be beliefs no longer tenable by intelligent minds, and that have been abandoned by all who know anything of science. Is there not equal danger on the other side, a danger hinted at by the poet, when he forbids the confusing of a 'life that leads melodious days' ?1 Many who have appeared, in their own eyes, to have reached the pure air of a higher intellectual and spiritual life, have yet failed in this world of sin; nor can we doubt that the origin of their moral failures is to be sought, in what they have considered their freedom of thought in relation to Divine Revelation.

Even where this Sceptical attitude does not lead to moral failure, there may be exerted on the whole mental and moral 1 In Memoriam, xxxiii.

life a withering and blighting influence. The heroes of the past, the men who have subdued kingdoms and wrought righteousness, have all been men of faith; their faith may not have been as pure as it might have been had their knowledge been wider, their religious creeds may have contained propositions that are no longer accepted (not because of such creeds, but in spite of them did they accomplish great things), but they were strong because of their heroic faith in God and in His moral government. 'The man,' says Professor Blackie, 'who will succeed must seek, and he must see, and he must strike, and above all things he must believe. Nature does nothing for doubters.'1

Ages of Scepticism have never been fruitful in heroic deeds. The great Puritan leaders who made our country, the men who in the House of Commons resisted the tyranny of kings, who in the fires of persecution defied and resisted priesthoods, the men who could die, but could not be slaves-these were all men of faith. We may sneer at their strange coats and hats, we may be amused at their nasal speech, we may easily find flaws in their argument, and even convict them of disloyalty to New Testament ideals; one thing all earnest minds must ever admire and reverence-their strong faith in God, and their determination to obey His will under all circumstances and at all costs.

Now, the very children of the Puritans doubt whether God has spoken to man, and whether the record of His revelation is any longer profitable for discipline in righteousness! Need we wonder that, under such conditions, churches are half empty, and Christian work much neglected? that glaring abuses remain in our social life, and that political life is often so corrupt and degrading in its influence? To live pure lives, to do grand and noble deeds, is possible only to men of faith; where the attitude towards the Founder of Christianity even, and His most distinctive teachings, is one of Sceptical indifferLay Sermons,' p. 125.

1

ence, purity of life is most difficult, and the highest type of moral character impossible.

Is there a more excellent way? Must the inquirer always carry the burden of doubt and fear and unrest in his breast? Certainly not! He may not be able to answer all the arguments of the Sceptic, nor may he be competent even to understand some of the theories that are offered to us in place of the religion of our fathers. He may feel overwhelmed, as his eye rests on the lists of authors given in foot-notes by writers who try to persuade him that 'supernatural religion' is a thing of the past; he may be amazed at the erudition, the ingenuity, the fertility of resource, displayed by opponents of revelation, and yet he may refuse to follow in their path, or to allow his moral fibre to be weakened by feeding on the husks they offer to him as food for the soul.

Tennyson reminds us of one who,

'Fought his doubts, and gathered strength,-
He would not make his judgment blind,

He faced the spectres of the mind,
And laid them: thus he came at length
To find a stronger faith his own.'

It is the privilege of everyone to accomplish this sublime task; we may not have the learning necessary, the mental grasp essential, to a perfect mastery of the position of modern Scepticism, but the humblest of us may think out the problems of faith, and thus get knowledge and certainty at first hand. The Spirit of truth is promised to every honest mind, and under this influence alone can we ever hope to reach a true or abiding faith in the presence and power of the Unseen World. Some difficulties may be removed by argument, others only by wider and deeper knowledge; some doubts are the result of misconception, and others the fruit of imperfect acquaintance with the facts of life. There is a way of stating and illustrating the history of the progress of science, which makes it appear that before its triumphal march the ideas, conceptions, and beliefs taught by the Bible must ever of necessity retreat;

there is another, and, we believe, a truer account to be given, one which, while it may not solve all problems, and relieve the mind of all difficulties, yet makes us hopeful as to the result of deeper study alike of science and Christianity.

Whether we may, or may not, be able to dispose satisfactorily of the arguments, theories, and prepossessions that make faith so difficult to many, let us hold firmly that faith, a truly rational faith, is possible to all honest minds! We read in the Gospels of one who was born blind, and who received his sight by the healing touch of Jesus Christ; he was certainly no match in argument for the learned Doctors and Sceptical Pharisees who plied him with their relentless logic; he was not expert in theological questions as to the relation of sin to works of healing, but one thing he knew for certain, was as sure of this as of his own existence: once he had been blind, now he saw. It is, we believe, the privilege of every seeking soul, no matter how perplexed in faith by current theories and influential Scepticisms, to come face to face with truth, as revealed in the Record of God's Revelation, and to know, at first hand, all that man most needs to learn. A true revelation of God,' says a deep thinker, 'must be its own witness;' and those who would attain real certainty must come into living personal contact with the Great Revealer. This is at once the simplest, the most direct, and at the same time most spiritual, of all methods of knowledge. The soul that thus knows for itself, will be able to say with a distinguished scholar and critic: 'Of this I am sure at the outset (i. e., of all inquiries), that the Bible does speak to the heart of man in words that can only come from God—that no historical research can deprive me of this conviction, or make less precious the divine utterances that speak straight to the heart.' If, as the result of personal contact with the truth, not mere study of evidences,' we have this direct and well-grounded certainty, we shall be able to say with the same writer, though ignorant of criticism, whether 'newer' or 'older' 'So it is with the Bible. The supreme truths which speak to every believing heart, the way of salvation, which is the same in all ages, the clear voice

of God's love, so tender and personal and simple that a child can understand it—these are the things that must abide with us, and prove themselves mighty from age to age apart from all (may we not also say in spite of all ?) scientific study. But those who love the truth will not shrink from any toil that can help us to a fuller insight into all its details and all its setting; and those whose faith is firmly fixed on the things that cannot be moved, will not doubt that every new progress in Biblical study (or any other study) must in the end make God's great scheme of grace appear in fuller beauty and glory.'1

From this standpoint of faith the following pages are written. The writer is deeply conscious of his inability to deal with many of the critical questions raised in connection with modern unbelief; many of these must be left to experts, just as are other questions in science, nor need we fear the results of thorough examination by competent critics. He is, however, conscious of a strong desire to help those who are 'perplexed in faith,' and who are seeking paths that lead towards the light of life. It is not necessary, in order to help an honest inquirer, that we should answer all arguments, or discuss all theories. The evidences, so-called, for the truth of Christianity, are far too numerous and far too varied to be dealt with in a few chapters; nor are there wanting, for those who have leisure and ability to study them, many works written by able and earnest defenders of the faith. A far humbler task the present writer has ventured to set before himself. If he can suggest thoughts, or new lines of thought, to honest inquirers; if he is able to show that, in relation to many opinions said to be false, and many truths now attacked, there is not a little to be said on the other side; if he is able to point to this mistake and that misconception, to this error and that misrepresentation, he may break the force of many a sceptical argument, and help the honest seeker to find more and clearer light.

Much depends in all such inquiries on the attitude of mind.

1 'The Old Testament in the Jewish Church,' by Professor Robertson Smith, p. 29.