a man who has gone off the road. Bring him back
and torture him!"

We have got past that physically; have we got past it morally? What
does the modern Church say to a man who is skeptical? Not "Burn him!"
but "Brand him!" "Brand him!"--call him a bad name. And in many
countries at the present time, a man who is branded as a heretic is
despised, tabooed and put out of religious society, much more than if
he had gone wrong in morals. I think I am speaking within the facts
when I say that a man who is unsound is looked upon in many
communities with more suspicion and with more pious horror than a man
who now and then gets drunk. "Burn him!" "Brand him!" "Excommunicate
him!" That has been the Church's treatment of doubt, and that is
perhaps to some extent the treatment which we ourselves are inclined
to give to the men who cannot see the truths of Christianity as we see
them.

Contrast

CHRIST'S TREATMENT

of doubt. I have spoken already of His strange partiality for the
outsiders--for the scattered heretics up and down the country; of the
care with which He loved to deal with them, and of the respect in
which He held their intellectual difficulties. Christ never failed to
distinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is "_can't believe_";
unbelief is "_won't believe_." Doubt is honesty; unbelief is
obstinacy. Doubt is looking for light; unbelief is content with
darkness. Loving darkness rather than light--that is what Christ
attacked, and attacked unsparingly. But for the intellectual
questioning of Thomas, and Philip, and Nicodemus, and the many others
who came to Him to have their great problems solved, He was respectful
and generous and tolerant.

And how did He meet their doubts? The Church, as I have said, says,
"Brand him!" Christ said, "Teach him." He destroyed by fulfilling.
When Thomas came to Him and denied His very resurrection, and stood
before Him waiting for the scathing words and lashing for his
unbelief, they never came. They never came! Christ gave him
facts--facts! No man can go around facts. Christ said, "Behold My
hands and My feet." The great god of science at the present time is a
fact. It works with facts. Its cry is, "Give me facts. Found anything
you like upon facts and we will believe it." The spirit of Christ was
the scientific spirit. He founded His religion upon facts; and He
asked all men to found their religion upon facts.

Now, get up the facts of Christianity, and take me