f expurgation and reconstruction upon it. The burden consists in
separating the immortal truth of the gospel from human imperfections,
and in finding in it a more complete expression. The present crisis has
dangers and temptations which, in our day, render moral and intellectual
life very difficult, and multiply shipwrecks before our eyes. "We wish,"
M. de Pressense declares for himself and his co-laborers, "to serve the
cause of evangelical theology, and nothing else. We do not lift a
standard which would summon all opinions and systems without
distinction. We stand upon the position that there is a positive
revelation, which is not the most distinguished product of human reason,
but a divine work of redemption by him whom we appeal to as the Son of
Man and the Son of God, who 'died for our sins and rose again for our
justification.' It is in the Holy Scriptures that we find the revelation
which supplies the immortal wants of our conscience. Apostolical
Christianity does not come to us as the first theological elaboration,
the first system in a series. It is Christianity itself, and
consequently the primitive type, from which we ought never to wander. It
is the norm and rule of theology. Within these limits we freely admit
the liberty of thought. Variety of opinions has nothing which frightens
us; and we would regard uniformity and unanimity on secondary points as
a fearful evil."[117]

The purity of the Protestant theology of France is an aim constantly
before M. de Pressense. He holds that, notwithstanding the diversity of
its formulae, this theology is distinguished by two features: _first_, it
accepts the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and considers them alone
as containing the normal type of Christian thought; _second_, it
believes firmly in redemption, and that is in the salvation of ruined
humanity brought about by the sacrifice of the Man-God. Though the fall
of man was great, it was not absolute. Man was ruined by apostasy, but
he was not left destitute of all higher life. He retained some vestige
of his primal nature. A sense of the divine, a religious aptitude, and
the longing to return to God, subsist in his heart. These render his
redemption possible; for the moral law, which had been vindicated by the
terrible consequences of the fall, is maintained in all its integrity in
the restoration of the fallen creature. A certain harmony was necessary
between man and God in order to salvation. Had our nature be