366 CHRISTIANITY AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 



sider that, even if the Christian theology were given up, 

 Christianity in some sort would remain ; but to others it 

 seems equally certain that the idea of a Christianity without 

 theology and an organized Christian church will never be 

 anything but an idea, at any rate, not until the recluse and 

 hermit-class shall enormously out-number the persons who 

 prefer to live in communities and associate with one another 

 according to the customs of our world. The number of 

 those who would accept a Christianity without a theology 

 and church, is probably very small compared with the 

 number of those who reject all upon the thoroughly un- 

 tenable grounds that the Christian miracles are controverted 

 by the facts of science. If, as I believe, no scientific facts 

 hitherto discovered render impossible a reasonable belief in 

 the actual occurrence of the fundamental miracles upon 

 which Christianity rests, a great point certainly will have 

 been gained, and one of the most common and possibly 

 most influential of the arguments against faith and in sup- 

 port of no belief, will have been destroyed. 



I propose now to direct the attention of the reader to 

 some of the notions upon which it is acknowledged the 

 new faith is to be based, and especially to the doctrines 

 concerning the nature of life which it appears have been 

 fully accepted by Strauss, and seem to form as it were the 

 very keystone of his cosmic system. Never, I believe, has it 

 before been proposed to raise a faith upon so unstable a 

 foundation. The scientific substratum is a very quick- 

 sand ever undergoing change and shifting its position. In 

 a former work in speaking of the Christian doctrine con- 

 cerning the end of the world, Dr. Strauss remarked as 

 follows : " As we are competent to geologically trace the 



