272 E \ r OL U TION A ND DOGMA . 



dependent of all limitation. Agnostics, who protest 

 so strongly against Anthropomorphism, are, there- 

 fore, themselves anthropomorphists, when they at- 

 tempt, as they do by their irrational theory, to tie 

 down the Creator to the conditions of His creatures. 



Mysteries of Nature. 



I have said that one of the chief causes of Agnos- 

 ticism is ignorance of Christian philosophy and the- 

 ology. This is true. But there is also another 

 reason. The mysteries of nature which everywhere 

 confront us, and which baffle all attempts at their 

 solution ; the impossibility of lifting the veil which 

 separates the visible from the invisible world, are 

 other sources of skepticism, and contribute not a 

 little to make Agnosticism plausible, and to give it 

 the vogue which it now enjoys. "Hardly, "says the 

 Wise Man, " do we guess aright at things that are 

 upon earth ; and with labor do we find the things that 

 are before us. But the things that are in Heaven, 

 who shall search out ? " The mysteries of the natural 

 order, those which confront us on the threshold of 

 the unseen, are great and often insoluble ; but how 

 much greater, how much more unfathomable, are 

 those that envelop the world beyond the realm of 

 sense, the world of spirit and soul, the world of an- 

 gelic and Divine intelligence ! 



The difficulties indicated are grave indeed, but 

 skeptics are not the only ones who have given them 

 thought or fully appreciated their magnitude. There 

 is a Christian as well as a skeptical Agnosticism, and 

 all the difficulties suggested by the mysteries of the 



