g. His star seemed set in a hopeless night of shame and
defeat. The new religion appeared a failure. But in three days
affairs had taken a new aspect. He that was crucified had risen,
and the scattered disciples rallied from every quarter, and,
animated by faith and zeal, went forth to convert the world. As an
organic centre of thought and belief, as a fervid and enduring
incitement to action, in the apostolic times and all through the
early centuries, the received fact of the resurrection of Christ
wielded an incomparable influence and produced incalculable
results. Christianity indeed rose upon it, and, to a great extent,
flourished through it. The principal effect which the gospel has
had in bringing life and immortality to light throughout a large
part of the world is to be referred to the proclaimed resurrection
of Christ. For without the latter the former would not have been.
Its historical value has therefore been immense. More than nine
tenths of the dormant common faith of Christendom in a future life
now outwardly reposes on it from tradition and custom. The great
majority of Christians grow up, by education and habit, without
any sharp conscientious investigation of their own, to an
undisturbed belief in immortality, a belief passively resting on
the demonstration of the doctrine supposed to have been furnished
by the resurrection of Christ in Judea two thousand years ago. The
historical power of that fact has therefore been inexpressibly
important; and its vast and happy consequences as food and basis
of faith still remain. But this historic force is no longer what
it once was as a living and present cause. It now operates mostly
through traditional reception as an established doctrine to be
taken

22 J. Blanco White, Letter on Miracles, in appendix to Martineau's
Rationale of Religious Inquiry.

for granted, without fresh individual inquiry. Education and
custom use it as an unexamined but trusted foundation to build on
by common assumptions. And so the historic impetus is not yet
spent. But it certainly has diminished; and it will diminish more.
When faced with dauntless eyes and approached by skeptical
methods, it of course cannot have the silencing, all sufficient
authority, now that it is buried in the dim remoteness of nineteen
centuries and surrounded by obscuring accompaniments, that it had
when its light blazed close at hand. The historical force of the
alleged resurrection of Christ must evid