practical and clear. It does not trouble me to be told that the
Hebrew god was one among many. I know he was, without any research to
tell me so. Jehovah and Baal looked equally important, just as the sun
and the moon looked the same size. It is only slowly that we learn that
the sun is immeasurably our master, and the small moon only our
satellite. Believing that there is a world of spirits, I shall walk in
it as I do in the world of men, looking for the thing that I like and
think good. Just as I should seek in a desert for clean water, or toil
at the North Pole to make a comfortable fire, so I shall search the land
of void and vision until I find something fresh like water, and
comforting like fire; until I find some place in eternity, where I am
literally at home. And there is only one such place to be found.

I have now said enough to show (to any one to whom such an explanation
is essential) that I have in the ordinary arena of apologetics, a ground
of belief. In pure records of experiment (if these be taken
democratically without contempt or favour) there is evidence first, that
miracles happen, and second that the nobler miracles belong to our
tradition. But I will not pretend that this curt discussion is my real
reason for accepting Christianity instead of taking the moral good of
Christianity as I should take it out of Confucianism.

I have another far more solid and central ground for submitting to it as
a faith, instead of merely picking up hints from it as a scheme. And
that is this: that the Christian Church in its practical relation to my
soul is a living teacher, not a dead one. It not only certainly taught
me yesterday, but will almost certainly teach me to-morrow. Once I saw
suddenly the meaning of the shape of the cross; some day I may see
suddenly the meaning of the shape of the mitre. One fine morning I saw
why windows were pointed; some fine morning I may see why priests were
shaven. Plato has told you a truth; but Plato is dead. Shakespeare has
startled you with an image; but Shakespeare will not startle you with
any more. But imagine what it would be to live with such men still
living, to know that Plato might break out with an original lecture
to-morrow, or that at any moment Shakespeare might shatter everything
with a single song. The man who lives in contact with what he believes
to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and
Shakespeare to-morrow at breakfast. He is always