ristianity, again, that same concurrent testimony is
profoundly interesting. Certain Christian ideas are being assimilated in
India. Certain cardinal aspects of Christianity are proving themselves
possessed of inherent force and attractiveness. They are showing that
they possess force not from authority, or tradition, or as part of a
system of doctrine, or as racially fitting, but when presented in new
and often very unfavourable surroundings. Borrowing an expression from
physical science, certain elements of Christianity are proving
_themselves dynamical_. For in non-Christian India, ecclesiastical
authority or tradition and the system of Christian doctrine as such,
possess no force. By illustrations from other spheres, let us make clear
what is meant by such dynamical elements of Christianity. The doctrine
of the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection was put before
the world by Darwin in 1859, and within the half century has been
accepted almost as an axiom by the whole civilised world. Undoubtedly
that doctrine has proved itself dynamical. On the other hand, a few
years earlier than the publication of _The Origin of Species_, another
body of new doctrine was propounded to Britain and the world, and
strongly urged by its upholders, namely, the doctrine of Free Trade--the
advantage to the community of buying in the cheapest market. True or
false, that body of doctrine has not proved dynamical among the nations,
for the great majority of peoples still repudiate the doctrines of Free
Trade. Similarly certain elements of Christianity are commending
themselves to new India, and certain others are failing to do so at this
time.

[Sidenote: Illustrations from the history of Christianity.]

From century to century these dynamical elements of Christianity may
vary; and it is profoundly interesting to the student of the history of
religious beliefs to observe the variation. In the early apostolic
times, when the apostles and disciples were "scattered abroad," we see
plainly in the Acts of the Apostles that the dynamical element of
Christianity is the Resurrection of Our Lord. It is that which tells,
and His coming reign--with Jewish audiences in particular. It was,
_e.g._, the manifestation of Christ to St. Paul on his way to Damascus
that completed the conversion of his life. And so, repeatedly throughout
the record of the Acts of the Apostles, they are described as
witness--bearers of the resurrection to the outsid