XXXVI.

THE PROOF.

"For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.”1 PETER ii. 15.

THE prime purpose of Christianity is to make men good. It has other incidental aims, but this is the chief one. By making them good it sometimes makes them happy, though not always. It may do this or it may not. That depends upon circumstances. It may fail of this secondary purpose in any instance, and still not be open to the charge of having failed intrinsically. But if it should fail in its main purpose, nothing could save its repute. If it does not manifest itself in the world as a power for righteousness, it cannot vindicate its right to be in the world at all. The apostle recognizes this and states it in a very bold fashion. He points to it as the evidence of its divinity. He says the proof of the divine quality of the religion of Jesus Christ is that it actually makes men better.

Now, it must be confessed that this is not the ordinary line of evidence for the divinity of Christ or His Gospel. There are two other lines

of argument which are almost invariably relied upon. The first is the a priori reasonableness of the revelation. It points to the fact that it is likely that God would at some point in history break the silence of the ages and reveal himself to men. Then it calls attention to the words and work of Jesus, and declares that they correspond so completely with what man might expect from God that they are compelled to believe that they are the revelation of God. It insists that He fulfills all the conditions and tests of divinity, and that therefore He can be proved to be divine before the bar of the understanding. This is, in rough, the first and most common path of evidential reasoning.

It

The second is an appeal to the outward facts of history. It points to the extent and potency of the visible Church. It walks around about its walls and views the towers thereof. It says, "Behold, what goodly stones are these." points to the millions of members, to the artistic beauty of its fabric, to its power in law and in society. It says, "Look, there is Christianity. It has conquered a place for itself. It proves its divinity by its bigness." Now, both of these lines of argument are very valuable for certain purposes, but neither of them prove the existence of any divine quality in Christ. One of them is a purely intellectual structure, the other is an appeal to what is called common sense. Both of these remain within the circle of natural things,

and cannot escape from it to God. Whole libraries of apologetics might survive even after the world had discovered that Christianity was but a natural religion. The ecclesiastical empire might be perfect, and yet Christianity fail utterly.

Christ has rested the evidence of His religion upon the conduct of His followers. "Ye are living epistles, known and read of all men." The quality of the religion which you profess will be judged ultimately by what men read in you. "Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewithal shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men." "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid." "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in Heaven."

Now, the practical question arises, Is this kind of proof forthcoming? Are those who profess and call themselves Christians really better than the average of humanity? Are they so much better that the world is justified in attributing their goodness to a divine source? Christians themselves shrink from being put in this position. A sort of artificial modesty leads them to decline the obligation which their Master laid upon them. They would prefer that Christianity should not be judged by their conduct. But there is no escape. The Christian must be

better than other men. If he be not better, Christianity breaks down.

It is true, however, that both the Church and the world hesitate to move along this line of evidence. The secularist denies it utterly. He declares that goodness has a basis of its own. That its roots can be found in the conditions of human existence. That divine forces from outside are not needed to bring men into goodness. There is a mischievous movement in certain circles toward rehabilitating paganism. It would substitute the light of Asia for the Son of Righteousness. It would put Sakyi Mouni for Moses. It would substitute Guatama for Christ. What will serve to stem this mischievous current? Argument will not do it. The men who are driven in this current are either not open to argument or they are better arguers than are the Christians. The only evidence for Christ is Christians. They can stem and turn back this dangerous movement only by the purity, the kindliness, the divinity of their own lives. When they do this, and if they do this, they will be able to show not only the folly, but the danger, of the tendency of which I have spoken. Mr. Russell Lowell has said: "I fear that when we indulge ourselves in the amusement of going without a religion, we are not perhaps aware how much we are sustained at present by an enormous mass all about us of religious feeling and religious conviction, so that whatever it may be safe

for us to think, for us who have had great advantages and have been brought up in such a way that a certain moral direction has been given to our character, I do not know what would become of the less favored classes of mankind if they undertook to play the same game. Whatever defects and imperfections may attach to a few points of the doctrinal system of Christianity, it is infinitely preferable to any form of polite and polished skepticism which gathers as its votaries the degenerate sons of heroic ancestors, who, having been trained in a society and educated in schools, the foundations of which were laid by men of faith and piety, now turn and kick down the ladder by which they have climbed up, and persuade men to live without God, and leave them to die without hope. The worst kind of religion is no religion at all, and these men who indulge themselves in the amusement of going without a religion, may be thankful that they live in lands where the Gospel they neglect has tamed the beastliness and ferocity of the men, who, but for Christianity, might long ago have eaten their carcasses, like the South Sea Islanders, or cut off their heads and tanned their hides, like the monsters of the French Revolution. When the microscopic search of skepticism, which has hunted the heavens and sounded the seas, shall have turned its attention to human society, and found a place on this planet ten miles square where a decent man can live in de