n {172} would
seem to imply that the Scriptures recognise a diversity of mode. All
do not enter the kingdom of God by the same way; and the New Testament
offers examples varying from the sudden conversion of a Saul to the
almost imperceptible transformation of a Nathaniel and a Timothy. In
modern life something of the same variety of Christian experience is
manifest. While what is called 'sudden conversion' cannot reasonably
be denied,[13] as little can those cases be ignored in which the truth
seems to pervade the mind gradually and almost unconsciously--cases of
steady spiritual growth from childhood upwards, in which the believer
is unaware of any break in the continuity of his inner history, his
days appearing to be 'bound each to each by natural piety.'

(3) The question arises, Which is the normal experience? The matter
has been put somewhat bluntly by the late Professor James,[14] as to
whether the 'twice-born' or the 'once-born' present the natural type of
Christian experience. Is it true, he asks, that the experience of St.
Paul, which has so long dominated Christian teaching, is really the
higher or even the healthier mode of approaching religion? Does not
the example of Jesus offer a simpler and more natural ideal? The moral
experience of the Son of Man was not a revolution but an evolution.
His own religion was not that of the twice-born, and all that He asked
of His disciples was the childlike mind.[15] Paul, the man of cities,
feels a kindred turbulence within himself. Jesus, the interpreter of
nature, feels the steady persuasiveness of the sunshine of God, and
grows from childhood in stature, wisdom, and favour with God and man.
It is contended by some that the whole Pauline conception of sin is a
nightmare, and rests upon ideas of God and man which are unworthy and
untrue. 'As a matter of fact,' says Sir Oliver Lodge, 'the higher man
of to-day is not worrying about his sins at all, still less about their
punishment; his mission, if he is good for anything, is to be up and
doing.'[16] {173} This amounts to a claim for the superiority of the
first of the two types of religious consciousness, the type which James
describes as 'sky-blue souls whose affinities are with flowers and
birds and all enchanting innocencies than with dark human passions;
. . . in whom religious gladness, being in possession from the outset,
needs no deliverance from any antecedent burden.'[17] The second type
is marked by