e same elements,
combined in the same proportions, as gum-arabic.

What that belief is for which the fruits speak thus
so positively, it is less easy to divine. Religion from
the beginning of time has expanded and changed with
the growth of knowledge. The religion of the prophets
was not the religion which was adapted to the hardness
of heart of the Israelites of the Exodus. The Gospel
set aside the Law; the creed of the early Church was
not the creed of the middle ages, any more than the
creed of Luther and Cranmer was the creed of St.
Bernard and Aquinas. Old things pass away, new
things come in their place; and they in their turn grow
old, and give place to others; yet in each of the many
forms which Christianity has assumed in the world,
holy men have lived and died, and have had the witness
of the Spirit that they were not far from the truth. It
may be that the faith which saves is the something held
in common by all sincere Christians, and by those
as well who should come from the east and the west,
and sit down in the kingdom of God, when the children
of the covenant would be cast out. It may be that the
true teaching of our Lord is overlaid with doctrines;
and theology, when insisting on the reception of its
huge catena of formulas, may be binding a yoke upon
our necks which neither we nor our fathers were able
to bear.

But it is not the object of this article to put forward
either this or any other particular opinion. The writer
is conscious only that he is passing fast towards the dark
gate which soon will close behind him. He believes
that some kind of sincere and firm conviction on these
things is of infinite moment to him, and, entirely
diffident of his own power to find his way towards such
a conviction, he is both ready and anxious to disclaim
"all right of private judgment" in the matter. He wishes
only to learn from those who are able to teach him.
The learned prelates talk of the presumptuousness of
human reason; they tell us that doubts arise from the
consciousness of sin and the pride of the unregenerate
heart. The present writer, while he believes generally
that reason, however inadequate, is the best faculty to
which we have to trust, yet is most painfully conscious
of the weakness of his own reason; and once let the
real judgment of the best and wisest men be declared;
let those who are most capable of forming a sound
opinion, after reviewing the whole relations of science,
history, a