226 ARISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book in bute the doctrines of Christianity to a natural or a 

 supernatural source, it will be equally plain in either 

 case that they have found acceptance amongst men 

 because there was something inherent in the nature of 

 each individual Christian which naturally responded to 

 them. Even the staunchest Protestant who takes 

 his stand most exclusively on the Bible will be unable 

 to deny that Protestant Christianity, as it exists, 

 represents not merely an assent to a number of bare 

 propositions uttered by Christ, or made with regard 

 to Him by His disciples, but also the subjective inter- 

 pretation given to these by each believer as he 

 assents to them. Thus the doctrine of the Atonement 

 would never have been accepted by men, it would 

 never even have conveyed any meaning to them, if 

 there had not been something in their nature corre- 

 sponding to a sense of sin ; and the universal effect 

 which, for a time at least, this doctrine had on all the 

 Western nations and on all classes alike, showed 

 that this something which corresponded with the 

 sense of sin was one of those characteristics in which 

 all men were approximately equal, and that the 

 acceptance of the doctrine was therefore a true act 

 of democracy. 

 and especially B ut tne clearest illustration of the truth thus 



Catholicism. 



insisted on is to be found, not amongst the vary- 

 ing and conflicting doctrines of Protestantism, which 

 represent theoretically the direct result of the re- 

 vealed truths of the Bible on each believer individu- 

 ally, but in Christianity as represented by the Church 

 of Rome. According to ordinary Protestant opinion, 



