AGNOSTICISM. 7 i 



directly after their separation from their Master. The need of such a return to 

 the past arose naturally from the profound impression which had been made upon 

 them by the teaching, and still more by the individuality itself of Jesus, and on 

 which both their hopes for the future and their convictions were founded. ... It 

 is in these facts, in this continuity of a tradition which could not but go back to 

 the very morrow of the tragic scene of Golgotha that we have a strong guarantee 

 for its authenticity. . . . We have direct historical proof that the thread of tradi- 

 tion was not interrupted. Not only does one of our evangelists furnish this proof 

 in formal terms (Luke i, 2); but in many other places besides we perceive the 

 idea, or the point of view, that all which the apostles know, think, and teach, is at 

 bottom and essentially a reminiscence — a reflection of what they have seen and 

 learned at another time, a reproduction of lessons and impressions received. 



Now let it be allowed for argument's sake that the belief and 

 teaching of the apostles are distinct from those of subsequent 

 Christianity, yet it is surely a mere paradox to maintain that 

 they did not assert, as taught by their Master, truths which an 

 agnostic denies. They certainly spoke, as Paul did, of the love of 

 God ; they certainly spoke, as Paul did, of Jesus having been 

 raised from the dead by God the Father (Gal. i, 1) ; they certainly 

 spoke, as Paul did, of Jesus Christ returning to judge the world ; 

 they certainly spoke, as Paul did, of " the God and Father of our 

 Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. xi, 31). That they could have done 

 this without Jesus Christ having taught God's love, or hav- 

 ing said that God was his Father, or having declared that he 

 would judge the world, is a supposition which will certainly be 

 regarded by an overwhelming majority of reasonable men as a 

 mere paradox ; and I can not conceive, until he says so, that Prof. 

 Huxley would maintain it. But if so, then all Prof. Huxley's 

 argumentation about the Gadarene swine is mere irrelevance to 

 the argument he undertakes to answer. The Gospels might be 

 obliterated as evidence to-morrow, and it would remain indisput- 

 able that Jesus Christ taught certain truths respecting God, and 

 man's relation to God, from which an agnostic withholds his 

 assent. If so, he does not believe Jesus Christ's teaching ; he is 

 so far an unbeliever, and " unbeliever," Dr. Johnson says, is an 

 equivalent of " infidel." 



This consideration will indicate another irrelevance in Prof. 

 Huxley's argument. He asks for a definition of what a Christian 

 is, before he will allow that he can be justly called an infidel. 

 But without being able to give an accurate definition of a cray- 

 fish, which perhaps only Prof. Huxley could do, I may be very 

 well able to say that some creatures are not crayfish ; and it is not 

 necessary to frame a definition of a Christian in order to say con- 

 fidently that a person who does not believe the broad and unques- 

 tionable elements of Christ's teachings and convictions is not a 

 Christian. " Infidel " or " unbeliever " is of course, as Prof. Huxley 



