faith," there could have been no such
thing as Christianity. Let reformers who love Him take heart as they
consider that they are indeed following in the footsteps of the Master,
who has at no time said that the revelation which He brought, and which
has been so imperfectly used, is the last which will come to mankind.
In our own times an equally great one has been released from the centre
of all truth, which will make as deep an impression upon the human race
as Christianity, though no predominant figure has yet appeared to
enforce its lessons. Such a figure has appeared once when the days
were ripe, and I do not doubt that this may occur once more.

One other consideration must be urged. Christ has not given His
message in the first person. If He had done so our position would be
stronger. It has been repeated by the hearsay and report of earnest
but ill-educated men. It speaks much for education in the Roman
province of Judea that these fishermen, publicans and others could even
read or write. Luke and Paul were, of course, of a higher class, but
their information came from their lowly predecessors. Their account is
splendidly satisfying in the unity of the general impression which it
produces, and the clear drawing of the Master's teaching and character.
At the same time it is full of inconsistencies and contradictions upon
immaterial matters. For example, the four accounts of the resurrection
differ in detail, and there is no orthodox learned lawyer who dutifully
accepts all four versions who could not shatter the evidence if he
dealt with it in the course of his profession. These details are
immaterial to the spirit of the message. It is not common sense to
suppose that every item is inspired, or that we have to make no
allowance for imperfect reporting, individual convictions, oriental
phraseology, or faults of translation. These have, indeed, been
admitted by revised versions. In His utterance about the letter and
the spirit we could almost believe that Christ had foreseen the plague
of texts from which we have suffered, even as He Himself suffered at
the hands of the theologians of His day, who then, as now, have been a
curse to the world. We were meant to use our reasons and brains in
adapting His teaching to the conditions of our altered lives and times.
Much depended upon the society and mode of expression which belonged to
His era. To suppose in these days that one has literally to give all
t