ATHEISM AND THE CHURCH. 633 



Yet no one can listen to ordinary sermons, no one can open popular 

 books of piety or of doctrine, without feeling the urgent need there is 

 among Churchmen for a higher appreciation of the majestic infinitude 

 of God. It is true that, in these cases, it is the multitude and not the 

 highly educated few who are addressed ; and that, even among that 

 multitude, there are none so grossly ignorant as to compare the Trinity 

 to " three Lord Shaftesburys," and not many so childish as to picture 

 " one Almighty descending into hell to pacify another." * Such petu- 

 lance is reserved for men of the highest intellectual gifts, who — whether 

 purposely or ignorantly, it is hard to say — have stooped to provide their 

 generation with a comic theology of the Christian Church. But, after 

 all, it is impossible not to feel that the shadows of a well-loved past are 

 lingering too long over a present that might be bright with joyous sun- 

 shine ; that the subtilties of the schoolmen are too long allowed to 

 darken the air with 2:)ointless and antiquated weapons ; that the Renais- 

 sance, with its literary fanaticism, still reigns over the whole domain of 

 Christian book-lore ; and that the crude conceptions of the Ptolemaic 

 astronomy have never yet, among ecclesiastics, been thoroughly dis- 

 lodged or replaced by the far more magnificent revelations of the mod- 

 ern telescope. It is not asserted that no percolation of " things new " 

 is going on. It is not denied that as in the first century a change in 

 ideas about the priesthood carried with it a change in the whole reli- 

 gious S3''stem of which that formed the axis,'^ so now a change in ideas 

 about the earth's position in space demands a very skillful and patient 

 readjustment of all our connected ideas. But such a readjustment of 

 the old Semitic faith was effected, in the first century, by St. Paui ; 

 and there is no reason to think that the Church is unequal to similar 

 tasks now. And in this country especially there is an established and 

 organized " Ecclesia docens " ' which probably never had its equal in 

 all Church history for the literary and scientific eminence of its leading 

 members. For such a society to despair of readjusting its theology to 

 contemporary science, or idly to stand by while others effect the junc- 

 tion, were indeed a disgraceful and incredible treason ; so incredible 

 that — until it be proved otherwise — no amount of vituperation or un- 

 popularity should induce any reflecting Englishman to render that work 

 impossible by allowing his Church to be trampled down, and its time- 

 honored framework to be given up as a spoil to chaos. 



But there is yet another element in this question which binds the 

 Church of Christ to give to its solution the very closest and most inde- 

 fatigable attention. It is this : that from every science there arises 

 nowadays a cry like that addressed to Jesus himself when on earth, 

 " Lord, help me ! " It is not as if atheism were satisfied with itself. 

 In the pages of the " National Reformer" and similar organs of aggres- 



^ M. Arnold, "Literature," etc. (1873), p. 306. Spencer, "Sociology" (seventh edi- 

 tion, ISYS), p. 208. 



^ Hebrews vii. 12. ^ Teaching Church. 



VOL. XIV. — 41 



