either to prove or disprove them. She cannot be an authoritative witness in regard to them either one way or another, any more than a man who is blind can be a witness in regard to the colour of a person's dress who has just passed him at a distance. It is therefore utterly erroneous to suppose that true science can ever injure true religion, and it is unreasonable to entertain a blind fear or hatred against her because of such a supposition. To do so does not imply faith in Christianity, but a want of faith in it; a want of faith in truth and the God of truth. In short, the blind dread of science is sheer distrust of God, and a very real form of unbelief.

C

II.

OF INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES IN RELIGION.

WHILE the way of salvation is so very plain that even a child can apprehend it, it is not to be denied that there are many intellectual difficulties in connection with Christianity. It ought even to be frankly admitted that these difficulties are great both in number and in magnitude. But, unfortunately, there is a class of people who, from some mental idiosyncrasy, or peculiarity of training, keep looking at these mysteries only, or at least supremely, peering into the deep and unfathomable well, until they become bewildered by the darkness. They are drawn as by a morbid spell to fix their troubled mind upon the difficulties alone, until perhaps they end by regarding Christianity as an absurd, irrational, and incredible system, not even 'a cunningly devised fable,' and are fain to seek refuge from their perplexity in Scepticism or sheer Atheism. Just as the moth keeps fluttering around the flame until it is consumed by it, so their minds keep hovering around these difficulties until they prove their undoing. The object of the present study is to deal with these difficulties in a practical way,

and show what is the proper light in which to regard them, and what is the wise and healthful mode of treating them.

To many honest thinkers it is at first sight a matter of the greatest wonder that there should be any difficulties at all in a religion like Christianity, which professes to be a revelation from God to man; and they are ready to say, How much easier it would be to be a Christian, if only all mysterious doctrines were swept out of Christianity!

But instead of its being a reason for wonder that there are difficult doctrines in the Christian system, such doctrines are just what we might naturally expect. If any man were to declare that he had discovered or invented a religion which kept clear of all such doctrines, we might safely say that this very fact would show it to be a false and shallow religion; for a religion that has to do with such mysteries as sin, and God, and atonement, must of necessity contain difficult doctrines. If any religion avoids such doctrines, it can only do so by avoiding to grapple with those grand and awful problems which lie at the root of all genuine religion, and thus entirely failing to accomplish its end. These difficulties, accordingly, instead of being an occasion for wonder, are just what we might naturally expect, and instead of being an argument against Christianity, rather turn out, so far, to be an argument in its favour.

We may sometimes meet with people who are ready to declare that they are not under obligation to believe, and will not believe, what they cannot fully comprehend. But this is a principle which the slightest reflection will show to be utterly unsound and untenable. We must believe what we apprehend or see to be true, whether we can comprehend it or not; for our belief depends on sufficient evidence, and not on perfect comprehension of the object or event. It is a question, we repeat, of sufficient evidence, and not of complete logical analysis or comprehension. Let us contemplate, for example, the fact of our own personal existence. We must believe it on the evidence of our consciousness, though we cannot comprehend in the least the mystery of our existence. We know the fact that we do exist, but the how we cannot understand. Indeed, we need only to reflect for a moment to be convinced of the truth that creation is teeming with mysteries which we must accept on the evidence of our senses, but which we cannot in the least comprehend. In the eloquent language of J. S. Mill, Human existence is girt round with mystery; the narrow region of our experience is a small island in the midst of a boundless sea, which at once awes our feelings and stimulates our imagination by its vastness and obscurity. To add to the mystery, the domain of our earthly existence is not only an island in infinite space, but also in infinite time. The

past and the future are alike shrouded from us; we neither know the origin of anything which is, nor its final destination.'1 In short, all nature is full of mysteries, from the common dust beneath our feet up to the rolling world, and the still more mysterious soul of man. And surely if Nature, the first and lower revelation of God, is full of mysteries, the principle of continuity would lead us to expect that Christianity, the second and more advanced revelation, should contain similar and even greater and more numerous mysteries, as leading us into deeper depths. In any case, to quote the words of Leibnitz, 'the man who in divine things will believe nothing except what he can fully measure with his understanding, must narrow down the idea of God.'

It is natural, first of all, to inquire whence these difficulties arise. And we answer, that they partly arise from the objects contemplated in religion. One of these objects is God. He is indeed the prime object presented to us in religion, and in Him it lives and moves and has its being. But God is a being of such exalted nature, that we ought to be prepared to meet with mystery in any religion that professes to give us a revelation of Him. Mystery is indeed inseparably connected with the idea of God, and a God in whom there is no element of mystery, but who is perfectly comprehensible to us,

1 Three Essays on Religion, p. 102.