AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 467 



whether Jesus sanctioned the demonology of his time and nation 

 or not, it is doomed. The future of Christianity as a dogmatic 

 system and apart from the old Israelitish ethics which it has ap- 

 propriated and developed, lies in the answer which mankind will 

 eventually give to the question whether they are prepared to 

 believe such stories as the Gadarene and the pneumatological 

 hypotheses which go with it, or not. My belief is they will de- 

 cline to do anything of the sort, whenever and wherever their 

 minds have been disciplined by science. And that discipline 

 must and will at once follow and lead the footsteps of advancing 

 civilization. 



The preceding pages were written before I became acquainted 

 with the contents of the May number of this review, wherein I 

 discover many things which are decidedly not to my advantage. 

 It would appear that " evasion " is my chief resource, " incapacity 

 for strict argument " and " rottenness of ratiocination " my main 

 mental characteristics, and that it is "barely credible" that a 

 statement which I profess to make of my own knowledge is true. 

 All which things I notice, merely to illustrate the great truth, 

 forced on me by long experience, that it is only from those who 

 enjoy the blessing of a firm hold of the Christian faith that such 

 manifestations of meekness, patience, and charity are to be ex- 

 pected. 



I had imagined that no one who had read my preceding papers 

 could entertain a doubt as to my position in respect of the main 

 issue as it has been stated and restated by my opponent : 



an agnosticism which knows nothing of the relation of man to God mnst not only 

 refuse belief to our Lord's most undoubted teaching, hut must deny the reality of 

 the spiritual convictions in which he lived and died.* 



That is said to be " the simple question which is at issue between 

 us/' and the three testimonies to that teaching and those convic- 

 tions selected are the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, 

 and the Story of the Passion. 



My answer, reduced to its briefest form, has been : In the first 

 place, the evidence is such that the exact nature of the teachings 

 and the convictions of Jesus is extremely uncertain, so that what 

 ecclesiastics are pleased to call a denial of them may be nothing 

 of the kind. And, in the second place, if Jesus taught the de- 

 monological system involved in the Gadarene story — if a belief 

 in that system formed a part of the spiritual convictions in which 

 he lived and died — then I, for my part, unhesitatingly refuse be- 

 lief in that teaching, and deny the reality of those spiritual con- 

 victions. And I go further and add, that exactly in so far as it 



* <> 



Popular Science Monthly," July, 1889, p. 328. 



