he was far from unwilling
to become, if possible, a sharer in their hope and joy. Perhaps already
he was repenting having pledged himself to unbelief, as many another has
repented. Certainly he was not afraid of being convinced that his Lord
had arisen; on the contrary, he sought to be convinced of this and put
himself in the way of conviction. He had doubted because he wished to
believe, doubted because it was the full, entire, eternal confidence of
his soul that he was seeking a resting-place for. He knew the tremendous
importance to him of this question--knew that it was literally
everything to him if Christ was risen and was now alive and to be found
by His people, and therefore he was slow to believe. Therefore also he
kept in the company of believers; it was on their side he wished to get
out of the terrible mire and darkness in which he was involved.

It is this which distinguishes Thomas and all right-minded doubters from
thorough-going and depraved unbelievers. The one wishes to believe,
would give the world to be free from doubt, will go mourning all his
days, will pine in body and sicken of life because he cannot believe:
"he _waits_ for light, but behold obscurity, for brightness, but he
walks in darkness." The other, the culpable unbeliever, thrives on
doubt; he likes it, enjoys it, sports it, lives by it; goes about
telling people his difficulties, as some morbid people have a fancy for
showing you their sores or detailing their symptoms, as if everything
which makes them different from other men, even though it be disease,
were a thing to be proud of. Convince such a man of the truth and he is
angry with you; you seem to have done him a wrong, as the mendicant
impostor who has been gaining his livelihood by a bad leg or a useless
eye is enraged when a skilled person restores to him the use of his limb
or shows him that he can use it if he will. You may know a dishonest
doubter by the fluency with which he states his difficulties or by the
affectation of melancholy which is sometimes assumed. You may always
know him by his reluctance to be convinced, by his irritation when he is
forced to surrender some pet bulwark of unbelief. When you find a man
reading one side of the question, courting difficulties, eagerly seizing
on new objections, and provoked instead of thankful when any doubt is
removed, you may be sure that this is not a scepticism of the
understanding so much as an evil _heart_ of unbelief.

T