INTRODUCTION A STUDENT at one of our theological colleges once consulted the divinity lecturer as to the best books on modern theology which he could present to a clerical friend. The answer came promptly and decisively-"Give him a set of Browning." The advice was not followed; the student was only partially familiar with the great poet's works, and could not quite see how they would help a country parson in his pulpit duties. But some years after this suggestion, he took up the study of Browning more systematically, and then he saw the wisdom of his tutor's advice. The world is becoming very sick of dogma, and daily becomes more unwilling to believe anything on mere authority. Creeds and confessions of faith are growing out of date. The spread of education, the increasing power of the press, and the inquiring attitude of the nineteenth-century mind, constitute an unfavourable atmosphere for the dogmatic churches. If xiv INTRODUCTION the Christian religion is to be made acceptable to the thinking portion of the community, it must be proposed to the reason and not propounded as something to be taken or rejected without inquiry, under threats of eternal penalties. Christianity has no need of such a defence; of all religions it is the most reasonable, and has less cause than any other to shrink from the fiercest light of investigation and the minutest methods of inquiry. Unhappily, however, it is much easier to meet opposition by denunciation than by argument, and it takes less time to condemn one's antagonist as an "infidel" than to expose the fallacies in his reasoning. The opponents of the Christian faith assert that "among all but certain of the aged and the very illiterate, belief, in the strict orthodox sense of the term, is practically dead-openly and tacitly, men and women are ashamed of the gospel of Christ." They declare that of those who do not actually quit the Christian camp there remain thousands who live a lie: they are outwardly religious, inwardly heretical. Philosophic doubt, we are told, is in the air, and those who tell us this rejoice in the fact, because "doubt is the source of human progress." But they lament that the poisonous germs of moral cowardice are also present in the intellectual atmosphere, and that nine out of ten of the 1 National Reformer, June 11, 1893, p. 369. INTRODUCTION XV more intelligent professing Christians would be outspoken Atheists or Agnostics if they dared. This would be a terrible indictment if it were true; it is, however, merely the expression of the alarm of the opponents of Christianity at its latest development; it requires only to be stated in set terms for its falsity to be demonstrated. So far from it being the fact that men and women are "openly and tacitly ashamed of the gospel of Christ," it is certain that the teaching of Jesus has a stronger hold on men's minds and hearts to-day than it ever had before. It would seem that the world is only just beginning to grasp the real inwardness of Christ's gospel. " We are not concerned to deny that what is intended by the term "strict orthodoxy is rapidly dying out, but strict orthodoxy and vital Christianity are by no means synonymous. That we are in the midst of a great crisis in matters religious is not to be disputed, and nothing is to be gained by concealing or disguising the fact. As the great tunnel under Mont Cenis neared completion, the French and Italian workmen on opposite sides were able to hear each other's voices and the blows of their picks. Soon they met and shook hands. They had toiled for years from opposite sides, but their work was harmonious, and the great international railroad under the Alps was an accomplished fact. Ever |