THE PRIDE OF INTELLECT. 253 



pride : the readiness to forget or overlook the truth 

 that there is nothing which we did not receive, and 

 that we may not glory as if we had not received 

 it. \Yhethcr we are priests or laymen it is true 

 that " our sufficiency is of God." 



But if it is hard for a Christian Priest to dis- 

 tinguish between the uncompromising fidelity to 

 the message he is charged to teach, and a mere 

 defiant self-assertion, it is certainly not less hard 

 for those, who are entrusted with other forms of 

 ministry by God, to distinguish between a loyal 

 devotion to the cause of truth and the self-suffici- 

 ency of the individual discoverer or teacher. And 

 the difficulty reaches a climax when religion claims 

 the submission of the reason, or censures the pride 

 of intellect, or speaks of " rationalism " as the foe 

 of faith. For at once we are put upon the defen- 

 sive. We feel that Reason is not something unholy 

 and impure that it must be banished from the 

 courts of the temple of our God ; nor is it some 

 outside power which may indeed become the ally, 

 but more naturally is the foe of the deepest con- 

 victions of our religious life. It is the power which 

 God has given us to enable us to know Him ; and 

 we slight and despise our birthright if we do not 

 try " to know the things which are freely given us 

 of God." It is not pride in reason to try and 

 know, nor can reason without being false to itself, 

 submit to that which is not true, nor is there any, 



