92 THE LIGHT OF DAT 



the critical discussion as to the authorship of the 

 four Gospels. This may well he. It may he he- 

 cause Dr. Abhott is not primarily interested in ques- 

 tions of evidence or in logical and reasoning pro- 

 cesses. He is a moralist and preacher, and seeks 

 the springs of conduct, not the sources of logical con- 

 viction. I believe he accepts the doctrine of de- 

 moniacal possession ; it seems to suit his emotional 

 and imaginative type of mind. But a man of sci- 

 ence, as such, could no more accept such an expla- 

 nation of any form of insanity than he could attribute 

 crystallization to the work of fairies or the wind and 

 the storm to furies. The authorship of the four 

 Gospels may not be a vital question to the religious 

 mind, but as a question it is a matter of evidence, 

 and not at all of personal impression. 



If Christianity really rested upon evidence, if its 

 vitality was solely dependent upon verifiable facts 

 and considerations, like a work of science, it would 

 have perished from the earth long ago. But it does 

 not live by its so-called evidences. Christianity is 

 largely a matter of the heart, of the feelings and the 

 emotions. It has not rested upon logical evidences ; 

 its main hold in the first instance has not been upon 

 men's scientific faculties, but upon their hopes, fears, 

 aspirations, and spiritual cravings. To talk about 

 the reasonableness of Christianity is like talking 

 about the reasonableness of magic or witchcraft. 

 The human faculties are utterly powerless before 

 its main tenets. Christianity has the vitality of 

 literature, of poetry and art. The Gospel records 



