240 NATURE AND MAN. 



commonly regarded as authoritative revelation must not be care- 

 fully re-examined under the searching light of modern criticism, 

 in order that what is sound may be preserved and strengthened, 

 and that the insecurity of some parts may not destroy the stability 

 of the whole. 



I notice, further, among even " orthodox " theologians of the 

 present time, indications of a disposition to regard the New 

 Testament miracles rather as encumbrances, than as props, to 

 what is essential in Christianity ; of a feeling that they are rather 

 to be explained away,* than adduced as authoritative attestations 

 of the teachings of Jesus ; — and of a perception that to attempt to 

 enforce a belief in them on the part of the rising generation, will 

 be either to alienate from the acceptance of those teachings many 

 of the most cultured and most earnest young people of our time, 

 or to reduce their minds to that state of unreasoning subservience 

 to authority, which finds its only logical basis in the Roman 

 Catholic Church. And, moreover, I observe it to be among 

 those, in various religious denominations, who are converging to 

 tbe conclusion that the "authority" of Christianity most surely 

 consists in the direct appeal it makes to the hearts and con- 

 sciences of mankind, — who most fully recognize in the life, 

 teaching, and death of Christ, that manifestation of the Divine 

 (d7raT;yao-yu.a t^s co^t^s koX ^apaKTr]p t^s iiTroorTacrews avrov) which 

 constitutes him their Master and Lord,^and who most earnestly 

 and constantly aim to fashion their own lives on the model of his, 

 — that there is the greatest readiness to admit that the records 

 of that life are tinged by the prepossessions, and subject to the 

 inaccuracies, to which all human testimony is liable. 



It was nobly said thirty years ago f (I believe by Francis 

 Newman) that " every fresh advance of certain knowledge appa- 

 " rently sweeps off a portion of (so-called) religious belief, duf only 

 " to leave the true religious element more and more pure ; and in 



* Thus theoloj^ians of the "philosophic" school argue that miracles are 

 not to be regarded as departures from the Divine order, but are parts of the 

 order originally settled in the Divine mind — as typified by the well-known 

 illustration supplied by Mr. Babbage from his calculating-machine. But this 

 obviously puts altogether on one side the notion of miracles as extraordinary 

 interpositions, involving a more direct personal agency than the ordinary 

 uniformity. 



\ Frospective Review^ vol, i. p. 53. 



