Some Christian Convictions / A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking

's nature to his highest inspirations. It is his

ible no more argues against its naturalness than that occasionally a man is found to be colorblind or without an ear for music. Mr. Lecky has written, "That religious instincts are as truly part of our nat

d the most completely devout natures, although childlike in their attitude towards God, give no impression of immaturity. When one compares Jesus of Nazareth with the leaders in State and Church in the Jerusalem of His day, He seems the adult and they the children. And further, those who attempt to destroy religion as an irrational survival address themselves to

the womb, like a g

and unbui

at it is an inherent element in human natu

Pascal describes faith as "God felt by the heart," and Schleiermacher finds the essence of religi

ne and bl

ffections gent

liation with Him, in a glowing enthusiasm for His cause, in the calm assurance of His guidance and protection, in

elf, was wont to be a sweet thought which went many times to the feet of God, that is to say in thought I contemplated the kingdom of the Blessed." And a present-day English thinker, Mr. F.H. Bradley, writes: "All of us, I presume, more or less are led beyond the region of ordinary facts. Some in one way and some in ano

oble daring to take our way to God." We trust that the Supreme Power in the world is akin to the highest within us, to the highest we discover anywhere, and will be our confederate in enabling us to achieve that highest. Kant found religion through response to the imperative voice of conscience, in "the recognition of our duties as divine comm

oor of the sanctuary with their hearts in and their heads out. Writing as an old man, Coleridge said of his youth, "My head was with Spinoza, though my whole heart remained with Paul and John." An unreasoning faith is sure to end in folly; it is a mind all fire without fuel. A true religious experience, like a coral island, requires both warmth and light i

of a priest and without the ?sthetic enticements of the Mass, was brought by his reading to embrace Roman Catholicism, and had himself baptized by a Jesuit father in June, 1753. By Christmas of 1754 he had as thoughtfully read himself out of all sympathy with Rome. He was undoubtedl

for theological niceties, but wear orthodox blinders that shut out all disturbing facts. Cardinal Newman, for example, declared that dogma was the essential ingredient of his faith, and that religion as a mere sentiment is a dream and a mockery. But he was so afraid of "the all-corroding, all-dissolving skepticism of the intel

to the te

this life's

"Even the simplest act of will in regard to religion-that of prayer-has not been performed by me for at least a quarter of a century, simply because it has seemed so impossible to pray, as it were, hypothetically, that much as I have always desired to be able to pray, I cannot will the attempt." Christianity has ever laid stress upon its intellectual appeal. By the manifestation of the truth its missionaries have, from Paul's day, tried to commend t

effort. It can never be an easy thing to rely on love as the ultimate wisdom and power in the universe. "The will to believe," if not everythi

n Christian, Arnobius, tells us that we must "cling to God with all our senses, so to speak." And Thomas Carlyle gave us a picture of the ideal believer when he wrote of his father that "he was religious with the consent of h

all g

ve one yard be

om that of Eli. But we gradually learn to "possess our possession," to respond to our own highest inspirations, whether or not they inspire others. Pascal well says: "It is the consent of yourself to yourself and the unchanging voice of your own reason that ought to ma

y recognize the same life when it develops like a spring-born stream from a small trickle, increased by many tributaries, into a stately river. The value of an experience is to be judged not by its form, but by its results. Fortunately for Christianity the New Testament contains a variety of types. With the first disciples the light dawns gradually; on St. Paul it bursts in a flash brighter than noonday. The emotional h

establishing intercourse with the Divine. "We love, because He first loved us," they say. The Apostle, who speaks of his readers as those who "have come to know God," stops and corrects himself, "or rather to be known of God." Believers discover that God

is likely to remain incredible. Prepossession has almost everything to do with the commencement of belief. It is only when circumstances force a man to feel that a God would be desirable that he will risk himself to yield to his highest inspirations, and give God the chance to disclose Himself to him. It is a case of nothing venture, nothing have. Faith is always a going out whither

of faith is nourished by fellowship with the believing Church. It is increased by familiarity with fuller and richer experiences of God; continuous study of the Bible leads men into its varied and profound communion with the Most High. It is enl

have really f

motion they style

eir method of

ism of word

xts in so m

eviving and

perfectly (wh

f, which stren

singeth." Above all, the instinct for the Unseen is developed by exercise; obedience to our heavenly visions sharpens the eyes of the heart. Charles Lamb pictures his sister and himself "wi

d after Thee." He who does not become a confirmed seeker for God is not likely ever to have truly found Him. There is something essentially irreligious in the attitude portrayed in the biography of Horace Walpole, who, when Queen Caroline tr

's intercourse with the Invisible. Even in the most sted

ments of d

to farthest

t "a study of history shows that if there is anything that human thought and cultivation have to be deeply thankful for, it is an occasional, but truly g

are constitutionally ill-adapted for fellowship with Him because they lack what Keats calls "negative capability"-"that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. Coleridge, for instance, would let go a fine isolated verisimilitude, caught from the Penetrali

ence is correct, that we are in touch with a living God who is to any extent what we fancy Him to be? Our experience consists of emotions, impulses, aspira

on a June morning, or to the artistic eye in the presence of a canvas by a great master. Men are no more argued into fai

, and welcome; 'tis

it beautiful; it makes its own irresistible impression. There are similar moments for the soul when some word, or character, or event, or suggestion within ourselves, bows us in admiration before the incomparably Fair, in shame before the unapproachably Holy, in acceptance bef

lf, yet afterwards I have been in my spirit so filled with darkness, that I could not so much as once conceive what that God and that comfort was with which I had been refreshed." Many a Christian today knows the inspiration and calm and rei

experiences parental love without knowing accurately who its parents are-their characters, position, abilities, etc. But the child's experience of loving care convinces the child that he possesses living parents. Is it likely that, were God a mere fancy, a fancy which we should promptly discard if we knew it as such, our experience could be what it is? An explanation of an experience, which would destroy that experience, is scarcely to be received as an explanation. Religion is

idity of the inference we

ersistent. In childhood, in youth, in middle age, at the gates of death, in countless experiences, the God we infer from our spirit's reactions to Him meets and answers our changing needs. Matthew Arnold writes: "Jesus Christ and His precepts are found to hit the moral experience of mankind; to hit it in the critical points; to hit it la

eded us. "They looked unto Him and were radiant." Those thousands of beautiful and holy faces in each century, "lit w

inds transfigur

eth than fan

omething of gr

into the world's history, and w

enerations of

is trust in the Lo

e in His fear,

upon Him, and

housand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, out of every kindred and tongue and nation, thro

other, but also possesses more power to create faith, and to take us farther into the Unseen; we look unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith. His life and death, His character and influence, remain the world's mos

be a blessing, but, like every other falsehood, a curse. If our religion is a stained glass window we color to hide the void beyond, then in the name of things as they are, whether they have a God or not, let us smash the deceiving glass, and face the darkness or the daylight outside. "Religion is nothing unless it is true," and its workableness is the test of its truth. Behind the accepted hypotheses of science lie countless experiments; and anyone who questions an hypothesis is simply bidden repeat the experiment and convince himself. Behind the fundamental conviction of Christians are generations of believers who have tri

ve existence of Him with whom we have to do is to lead another to see Him. The most effective defender of the faith is the missionary. "It requires," as David Livingstone said, "perpetual propagation to attest its genuineness." Not they who sit and study and disc

ll flesh see it together. But with personal certainty, based on our own experience, corroborated by the testimony of