DIFFICDLTIES OP BELIEF. 



183 



bygone age. But this is quite apart from that faith in the Lord Jesus 

 Christ, which brings us the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. 



Professor Langhorne Orchard wrote : That much modern 

 unbelief is traceable to one or more of the three sources, to which 

 attention is directed in this able paper, there can be no question. 

 Mistaken views as to natural laws, and disparaging (if not irreverent) 

 treatment of the Bible, have combined, with a feverish thirst for 

 pleasurable excitement, to blur the clear perception of Truth, and 

 to chill love for that spiritual beauty from which some eyes have 

 wandered. 



Natural law has been imagined as a fetish, some mysterious 

 entity, a phase or aspect of a stern inexorable necessity, toward 

 which, as regnant in the universe, man's only fitting attitude 

 is the submission of the slave and vassal. It has not been generally 

 recognized that natural laws are simply force-uniformities, i.e., 

 uniform manners of spiritual action, essentially expressions of Will 

 which is not the less free that it chooses to act in certain uniform 

 modes. Misconception as to the character of natural law has fostered 

 a lazy acquiescence in the supposition of a blind deity called Fate, 

 and led to indisposition to that will-effort without which can be no 

 intelligent acceptance and belief of truth. 



Disparagement of the Bible has produced a weakening of moral 

 principle and a loosening of moral restraints. Sin has been made 

 easier, and in many minds has arisen despair of finding certainty 

 anywhere, truths the most solemn and most sure coming to be 

 regarded as matters of opinion, or of probability only. 



The modern " Higher Criticism," to which this disparagement of 

 the Bible is due, is largely based on the theory of Evolution. The 

 Evolution speculation is also to a great extent responsible for that 

 thirsty craving after materialistic satisfaction which is a characteristic 

 of our age, and of which the inevitable tendency is, as stated on 

 p. 172 of the paper, " to concentrate attention on the visible and 

 tangible, and to forget the unseen and spiritual." 



But behind these " second causes " lies the love of the pleasures 

 of sin in the fallen hearts of men. Difficulties of belief of God's 

 word have their roots, and find their nourishment, here. We are 

 reminded of this by Holy Writ, "... they do always err in 

 their heart." " Out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts . . . 

 foolishnes.'i.'' 



