lided over them, and they have been roused from weakness and
death. 'He that was healed wist not Who it was, for Jesus had conveyed
Himself away.' So it happened in the days of His flesh: so is it
happening still: they that are set free may not yet know to Whom {208}
their freedom is to be ascribed. Now, as on the way to Emmaus, when
men are communing together and reasoning, Jesus Himself may be walking
with them, though their eyes are holden that they do not know Him.
John Stuart Mill, whose acute intellect, whose spotless rectitude,
whose public spirit, whose non-religious training naturally made him
the idol of those to whom Christianity was a bygone superstition, came
in his later days, not indeed to accept the orthodox creed, but yet to
stretch out his longing hand to Christ, believing that He might have
'unique commission from God to lead mankind to truth and virtue.'
George Eliot, whose genius was ever labouring to fill up the void which
the rejection of her early faith had made, consoled her dying hours, as
she had inspired her most ennobling pages, with the _Imitation of
Christ_. Matthew Arnold, most cultured of critics, joins hands with
the most fervid of evangelists in maintaining that {209} 'there is no
way to righteousness but the way of Jesus.' The name of Christ--none
other name under heaven given among men will ever prove a substitute
for that.

Renouncing faith in Christ, is there life, is there salvation for man
to be found in the doctrines, the names, the influences which are so
vehemently extolled? Is there one of them which so satisfies the
cravings of the heart, which enkindles such glorious hopes, which
inspires to such holy living, which inculcates so universal a
brotherhood, as Christianity? Is there one of them which, at the best,
is more than a keeping of despair at bay, than a resolute acceptance of
utter overthrow, than a blindness to the tremendous issues which are
involved?[16] Will the culture which is devoted, and cannot but be
devoted, exclusively to the outward, which imparts a knowledge of
Science or Art or Literature, be found sufficient to {210} rescue men
from the slavery of sin or from the torment of doubt? Will the
progress which is altogether occupied with the material and the
physical, with providing better houses and better food and better
wages, produce happiness without alloy and remove the sting and dread
of death?[17] Will the reiteration of the dogma that we are