as become a sheer impossibility, and
more of the same import. This is certainly "fortissimo," but not therefore
by any means "verissimo."

Other correspondents, such as Agnosticus, declare all revelation a
chimera; in short, there has been no lack of expressions subversive of
Christianity, and, in fact, of all revealed religion.

At this point a glance at the development of the religion of the Hindus
may be of great service to us. Nowhere is the idea of revelation worked
out so carefully as in their literature. They have a voluminous
literature, treating of religion and philosophy, and they draw a very
sharp distinction between revealed and unrevealed works (_S_ruti and
Sm_ri_ti). Here much depends upon the name. Revealed meant originally
nothing more than plain and clear, and when we speak of a revelation, in
ordinary life, this is not much more than a communication. But erelong
"reveal" was used in the special sense of a communication from a
superhuman to a human being. The question of the possibility of such a
communication raised little difficulty. But this possibility depends
naturally on the prior conception of superhuman beings and of their
relationship to human beings. So long as it was imagined that they
occasionally assumed human form, and could mingle in very human affairs, a
communication from a Not-man, I will not say a monster, presents no great
difficulties. The Greeks went so far as to ascribe to men of earlier times
a closer intercourse with the gods. But even with them the idea that man
should not enter too closely into the presence of the gods breaks forth
here and there, and Semele, who wished to be embraced by Zeus in all his
glory, found her destruction in this ecstasy. As soon as the Deity was
conceived in less human fashion, as in the Old Testament, intercourse
between God and man became more and more difficult. In Genesis this
intercourse is still represented very simply and familiarly, as when God
walks about in the Garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve are ashamed of their
nakedness before Him. Soon, however, a higher conception of God enters, so
that Moses, for example (Exodus xxxiii. 23), may not see the face of
Jehovah, but still ventures at least to look upon His back. The writer of
the Fourth Gospel goes still farther and declares (i. 18), "No man hath
seen God at any time, the only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the
Father, he hath declared Him." Here we clearly see that the possibili