truth rests on Christian experience as to those matters for
which reason and natural ethical canon are insufficient.

[Sidenote: General Calm of Methodist Episcopal Church.]

[Sidenote: Wesley's Advanced Views.]

This having been the teaching of the Methodist Episcopal Church from the
beginning, she has been little disturbed by the critical school. While
holding that the Bible is the sole rule of faith, she has not committed
herself to any one theory of inspiration. She has not believed the
Scriptures because they are written, but, being written, she has found
them true. She has believed in the supernatural power of the Gospel
because in her sight its leaven has wrought in the individual and in
society what it claims for itself. John Wesley believed that there were
God-breathed teachings outside of the Bible. He believed this because of
his feeling that the Divine Fatherhood must have spoken to other than
His Jewish children. Inheriting from our founder these thoughts, we have
kept a high degree of calm in these later days of inquiry and doubt.

[Sidenote: Wide Range of Unbelief.]

[Sidenote: Natural Immortality.]

[Sidenote: Reward and Punishments.]

We have already admitted that the present tendency to unbelief has wider
range and fresher foundations than our fathers knew. The belief in the
natural immortality of the human soul whether of Platonic or Christian
origin is shaken to an extent not known in a century. The doubts of
Huxley, the denials of Haeckel had a purely scientific basis. The
suspension of consciousness by sleep, by accident, by drugs, the decay
of mind by old age and by disease are freely put forth as proofs that
mind can not exist without the mechanism which supports and manifests
it. If this last be true a doctrine fundamental to Christianity must be
abandoned. The doctrine of immortality through Christ does not meet the
new objections. The scheme of redemption and the doctrine of future
rewards and punishments are involved in the fate of the doctrine of
natural immortality. We have thus shadows of doubt thrown upon two great
doctrines, the virgin birth of Christ and natural immortality. The
miracles, Resurrection, and Ascension must be added to the shadowed
list.

[Sidenote: Some Influential Facts.]

[Sidenote: A Great Mistake.]

[Sidenote: Doctored Heathenism.]

Whatever relation the fact may have as a cause, it is noteworthy that as
to time, this new era of doubt largely coincides as