"To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth."

THIS Jesus said to Pilate; whereupon "Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?" And then, neither seeking nor waiting for an answer, Pilate left Jesus. He was, in reality, replying contemptuously to Jesus and stating the conviction of all worldly men. Great minds in the Roman and Greek world had tried to answer that unanswerable question. Always and everywhere learned men sought the truth without finding it. The scornful skepticism of Pilate is vividly shown by N. N. Gay, the Russian painter, in a picture which created an immense sensation in Russia when it was first exhibited. When Tolstoy saw it, he was so agitated that for days he could hardly speak of anything else. "That fat, shaven neck of the Roman Governor," he writes, “that half-turned, large, well-fed, sensual body, that out-stretched arm with its gesture of contempt . . . it is alive. It breathes, and impresses itself on the memory forever." (1) Facing Pilate is the witness unto the truth, "the worn-out sufferer who has undergone, during the night, arrest, judgment, and insults." (2) Is it likely that anything could have appeared more incredible to Pilate than that this wretched person before him could answer the question that has forever troubled the world? Although this was nine

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WHY WE FAIL AS CHRISTIANS

teen hundred years ago, he who attempts to answer that question to-day, even by the use of the gospels, opens up old interminable discussions.

There is hardly a point at which one can approach religion without awakening dissension. Endless theological discussions are aroused by any statement of religious faith; and many centuries of disheartening dissensions have arisen over creeds that contain hardly one word that Jesus uttered. It is rare for two men to take even the simplest words of Jesus and agree exactly upon a common interpretation. One will say that a certain sentence should be taken literally; another will maintain that that sentence is figurative. The plainest commandment that one accepts as clear, decisive, final, another will question because somewhere in the gospel other thoughts appear in contradiction. When one seeks a definite moral basis for life and goes to the gospel to find it, others confront him with phrases and clauses that contradict, if they do not actually undermine the basis chosen. The confusion is great, not only among individuals but also among the many sects and denominations. Hundreds of thousands of books have been written upon the various interpretations of Christianity, and tens of thousands of priests are engaged most of their time in the effort to spread among men their various and often antagonistic conceptions of the religion of Jesus. Although there have been nearly two thousand years of such controversy, all is still confusion; and the world itself, without great injustice, might now be pictured in the form of Pilate, saying as it hurries on, "What is truth?"

Notwithstanding all this confusion and uncertainty, millions of people believe that Jesus was the Son of God and that he came for a time to live among men to teach them the true life and to be the means of their salvation. Many of them also believe that the Bible was inspired and that not a word of it can be changed without doing violence to

the will of God. At the same time, incredible as it must appear, they do not know exactly what Jesus meant them to do. Before the freeing of the blacks one could receive no satisfying answer to the question: Can a Christian own slaves? And one receives to-day no satisfying answers to such questions as these: Can a rich man be a Christian? Is it permissible for a Christian to receive rent for his land and his houses or interest on his money? Shall a Christian take thought for the morrow and for the material needs of himself and of his family? May a Christian go to war? Can man be saved by faith alone? These are but a few of the many, many vital questions that Christendom does not answer. Indeed it seems altogether too willing to leave them unanswered. Yet Jesus came to "bear witness unto the truth," and was-how significant the expression-the "Word of God." Why is it then that we do not know the truth? Why is it that we do not understand what we are to do? We are, to be sure, stupid and ignorant. But Jesus knew this and must have felt that he—the Son of Godcould overcome even our stupidity and ignorance and drive into our poor heads a knowledge of the truth. Otherwise, why should he have come? If his teachings are beyond our vision and what he meant us to do beyond our power, why then should he have come to us at all? Surely it is impossible to believe that Jesus was in truth the Son of God and at the same time to admit that he failed to make himself understood and was therefore forever prevented from accomplishing the one thing above all others which he came to do.

Little less satisfying is the situation of those who doubt the divinity of Christ, who look upon him rather as a great philosopher and teacher of exceptional purity of soul and nobility of character and who think of him as the greatest of the great, superior in spiritual and mental vision to Socrates, Confucius, and Buddha. They do not believe

that every word of the gospel was inspired. They do not doubt that Jesus has been misquoted and that copyists have inserted many things in the gospels which Jesus never uttered. They believe that many of those who took down the words of Jesus were incapable of understanding all he meant to say, and that in this way and other ways errors have crept into the writings, which account for what appear to them to be certain contradictions and obvious absurdities. Yet they acknowledge Jesus as a great teacher and know that even as a lad, he possessed such a rare gift of expressing his thought, that he could go even among the elders and silence them. He could talk to the most ignorant and illiterate indeed, most of his disciples were illiterateand make himself understood. He also debated with the cunning lawyers and the learned scribes of his time, and not only was he a master of clearness, directness and simplicity, but he had a wonderful talent for explaining any unfamiliar thought by some striking analogy or parable. One of the signs that enable us to recognize the few great men who have lived in the world is this: they are nearly always able to state in clear, simple and concise language what they want to convey to the world. As we look into a clear pool and discern every detail of its sandy bottom, so may we often look into the minds of really great men. Considering Jesus, then, merely as a great man and as a great teacher, is it conceivable that he should have been incapable of telling us with perfect clarity what we should believe, how we should live, and what we should do in order to be true Christians?

The question answers itself. No one who reads the gospels thoughtfully and sympathetically will maintain that Jesus-whether God or man-was incapable of making himself completely understood. We must therefore seek for a better explanation of the confusion that exists among the avowed believers in the divinity of Christ, as well as