h--to do the same. The Early Church had a faith in Greek
philosophy, which stood in its way, brave and splendid as its
thinkers were.

Our second group is represented roughly by the Hymn Book. The
evidential value of a good hymn book will stand investigation. Of
course a great many hymns are mere copies, and poor copies; but the
Hymn Book at its best is a collection of first-hand records of
experience.[33] In the story of the Christian Church doxology comes
before dogma. When the writer of the Apocalypse breaks out at the
very beginning: "Unto him that loved us and washed[34] us from our
sins in his own blood . . . be glory and dominion for ever and ever"
(Rev. 1:5), he is recording a great experience; and his doxology
leads him on to an explanation of what he has felt and known--to an
intellectual judgement and an appreciation of Christ. The order is
experience,--happiness and song--and then reflection. The love and
the cleansing, and the joy, supply the materials on which thought
has to work. We have always to remember that thought does not
strictly supply its own material, however much it may help us to
find it. Philosophy and theology do not give us our facts. Their
function is to group and interpret them.

Our third group of records is given to us by the men of the
Reformation. We have there two great movements side by side. There
is Bible translation, which means, in plain language, a decision or
conviction on the part of scholars and thinkers, that the knowledge
of the historical Jesus, and of men's first experiences of him, is
of the highest importance in the Christian life. The whole
Reformation follows, or runs parallel with, that movement. It is
essentially a new exploration of what Jesus Christ can do and of
what he can be.

In dealing with all these three groups of records, we have to note
the seriousness of the men who made the experiments, their energy of
mind, their determination to reach real facts and, in Cromwell's
great phrase, to "speak things." They will have the truth of the
matter. Intricate and entangled as is the history, for instance, of
the Arian controversy--that controversy which "turned on a
diphthong," as Carlyle said in his younger days--it represented far
more than mere logomachy, as Carlyle saw later on. It followed from
a determination to get at the real fact of who and what Jesus Christ
is; and the two words, that differed by a diphthong, embodied
diametrically opposite concepti