DIFFICULTIES OP BELIEF. 



177 



and of the events that preceded this, and the short existence that 

 it ascribed to mankind prior to this — only about 2,000 years. But, 

 instead of doing so, many archaeologists and teachers of natural 

 science simply extend the period much further backwards from 12,000 

 years to 50,000 or 100,000 or even to 1,000,000 years ; because, 

 say they, if man has developed so imperceptibly in 4,500 or 5,000 

 years since those dynasties, how much vaster than even we supposed 

 must have been the lapse of time during which he had previously 

 developed from an anthropoid ape. And, leading newspapers write 

 articles in keeping with such views ; and the public read them with 

 avidity, and pay little heed to the confirmation of Holy Writ 

 yielded by the excavations and decipherments. 



Colonel G. Mackinlay said : I wish to add my sincere thanks 

 to the eloquent author for his very admirable description of the 

 conditions of thought at the present time. I am glad to note the 

 hopeful spirit which pervades the paper, as evidenced by his assertion 

 (bottom of p. 170), that at present the tendency of criticism is rather 

 to restore than to destroy belief. May not a similar hopeful view 

 be taken of the growing appreciations of the historical value of the 

 books of the New Testament, as evidenced by the wonderful 

 accuracy which Sir William Eamsay has shown exists in the book 

 of Acts 1 Good progress is being made by others also in the same 

 direction. 



Mr. John Schwartz said : I heartily endorse our lecturer's view 

 that the personality and influence of Jesus Christ is the great central 

 truth of Christianity, I go further and state that this rockbed is the 

 only foundation on which the Christianity of the twentieth century 

 can be securely built. The clergy and most good Christian people 

 seem to me quite out of touch with the virile opinions of the modern 

 world, which recognizes that the sound historical basis of Christianity, 

 as of all other religions, is found some century or centuries after 

 initiabion, when their votaries are sufficiently numerous and important 

 to attract public notice, and the real facts are always garnished 

 with myth and amalgamated with current religions and philosophical 

 ideas. I agree with our author that " The continual fluctuation of 

 opinion — of theory and of conjecture in the realm of scholarly 

 criticism " is unsatisfactory, but I prefer it to the uncritical dog- 

 matism of the middle ages and church fathers on which orthodoxy is 

 based. We see Christianity in Roman Catholic countries drifting 



