ow, is natural theism showing itself; and in
the dim and momentous changes that are coming over things, in the vast
flux of opinion that is preparing, in the earthquake that is rocking the
moral ground under us, overturning and engulfing the former landmarks,
and re-opening the graves of the buried lusts of paganism, it will show
itself very soon more helpless still. Its feet are on the earth, only.
The earth trembles, and it trembles: it is in the same case as we are.
It stretches in vain its imploring hands to heaven. But the heaven takes
no heed of it. No divine hand reaches down to it to uphold and guide it.

This must be the feeling, I believe, of most honest and practical men,
with regard to natural religion, and its necessary practical
inefficiency. Nor will the want it necessarily leaves of a moral rule be
the only consideration that will force this conviction on them. The
_heart_, as the phrase goes, will corroborate the evidence of the
_head_. It will be felt, even more forcibly than it can be reasoned,
that if there be indeed a God who loves and cares for men, he must
surely, or almost surely, have spoken in some audible and certain way to
them. At any rate I shall not be without many who agree with me, when I
say that for the would-be religious world it is an anxious and earnest
question whether any special and explicit revelation from God exist for
us; and this being the case, it will be not lost time if we try to deal
fairly and dispassionately with the question.

Before going further, however, let us call to mind two things. Let us
remember first, that if we expect to find a revelation at all, it is
morally certain that it must be a revelation already in existence. It is
hardly possible, if we consider that all the supernatural claims that
have been made hitherto are false, to expect that a new manifestation,
altogether different in kind, is in store for the world in the future.
Secondly, our enquiries being thus confined to religions that are
already in existence, what we are practically concerned with is the
truth of Christianity only. It is true that we have heard, on all sides,
of the superiority of other religions to the Christian. But the men who
hold such language, though they may affect to think that such religions
are superior in certain moral points, yet never dream of claiming for
them the miraculous and supernatural authority that they deny to
Christianity. No man denies that Christ was born o