or may not be based on mathematical
certainty. Fill up a basket with black and white pebbles and then draw out
one. Let us create a situation that shall make it imperative for a person
to declare whether a black or a white pebble will be drawn. For instance,
suppose the event to be controlled by an oriental despot who has given
orders to strike off the man's head if he announces the wrong color. Of
course, if he has seen that only white pebbles went into the basket he
says boldly "White." That is certainty. But suppose he saw one black
pebble in the mass. Does he any the less say "White"? That one black
pebble represents a tiny doubt; does it affect the direction of his
enforced action? Suppose there were two black pebbles; or a handful.
Suppose nearly half the pebbles were black? Would that make the slightest
difference about what he would do? If you judge a man's belief by what he
does, as I think you should do, that belief may admit of a good deal of
doubt before it is nullified. Are your beliefs all based on mathematical
certainties? I hope not; for then they must be few indeed.

That many of our fellow men have a wrong conception of belief is a very
sad fact. The idea that it must be based on a mathematical demonstration
of certainty, or even that it must be free from doubt is surely not
Christian. Our prayers and our hymns are full of the contrary. We are
beset not only by "fightings" but by "fears"--"within; without;" by "many
a conflict, many a doubt"; we pray to be delivered from this same doubt.
The whole body of Christian doctrine is permeated with the idea that the
true believer is likely to be beset by doubts of all kinds, and that it is
his duty, despite all this, to believe.

And yet there are many who will not call themselves Christians so long as
they can not construct a rigid demonstration of every Christian doctrine.
There are many thoughtful men who call themselves Agnostics just because
they can not be mathematically sure of religious truth. Some of these men
are better Christians than many that are so named. That they hold aloof
from Christian fellowship is due to their mistaken notion of the nature of
belief. The more is the pity. Now let us go back for a moment to our
basket of pebbles. We have seen that the action of the guesser is based to
some extent on his knowledge of the contents of the basket. In other
words, he has grounds for the belief by which his act is conditioned.
Persons may act wi