by acts than in words. Thus there
seems to have always been a sort of half-conscious feeling in
men's minds that there was more in Christianity than the arguments
for it were able to bring out. In looking back over the course
that apologetics have taken, we cannot help being struck by a
disproportion between the controversial aspect and the practical.
It will probably on the whole be admitted that the balance of
argument has in the past been usually somewhat on the side of the
apologists; but the argumentative victory has seldom if ever been
so decisive as quite to account for the comparatively undisturbed
continuity of the religious life. It was in the height of the
Deist controversy that Wesley and Whitfield began to preach, and
they made more converts by appealing to the emotions than probably
Butler did by appealing to the reason.

A true philosophy must take account of these phenomena. Beliefs
which issue in that peculiarly fine and chastened and tender
spirit which is the proper note of Christianity, cannot, under any
circumstances, be dismissed as 'delusion.' Surely if any product
of humanity is true and genuine, it is to be found here. There are
indeed truths which find a response in our hearts without
apparently going through any logical process, not because they are
illogical, but because the scales of logic are not delicate and
sensitive enough to weigh them.

'Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall
not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' 'I will arise and go to my
father, and will say unto him: Father, I have sinned against
heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy
son.' 'Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest.' The plummet of science--physical or
metaphysical, moral or critical--has never sounded so deep as
sayings such as these. We may pass them over unnoticed in our
Bibles, or let them slip glibly and thoughtlessly from the tongue;
but when they once really come home, there is nothing to do but to
bow the head and cover the face and exclaim with the Apostle,
'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.'

And yet there is that other side of the question which is represented
in 'Supernatural Religion,' and this too must have justice done to it.
There is an intellectual, as well as a moral and spiritual, synthesis
of things. Only it should be remembered that this synthesis has to
cover an immense number of facts of the