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and dogmatism of science. The Victoria Institute having, 
in the name of philosophy and science no less than of 
Christianity, uplifted the banner of Christian faith, a puissant 
host of adherents, counting not a few names of undeniable 
eminence in every department of cultivated thought, have 
gathered to that banner, and have manned the defences of 
our faith and swelled the garrison of the Institute. 
It appears to me that there was ten years ago, and that 
there is still to some extent, a danger of allowing exaggerated 
fears to prevail in regard to the hold which Christianity, in 
its essential faith and in its spiritual power, maintains upon 
our country and upon the rising thought and energy of the 
nation. Not only is there no need for alarm, there is, I 
cannot but hope, no need for discouragement ; although, on 
the other hand, false security would be a fatal mistake, and 
there is need undoubtedly for vigilance and energy, — such 
vigilance and energy as the Victoria Institute was created for 
the sake of enlisting, of organizing, of setting in array. 
The position of Christianity in a country is not to be 
estimated according to the negative gauge of the absence 
of professed unbelief, but by the positive gauge of the amount 
of fruitful Christian energy and life among the people, by 
the amount of living faith as tested by Christian fruits, of 
faith and life actually found growing and flourishing in the 
nation. The opposition now, as from the beginning, is between 
“that which is of the Father” and “that which is of the 
world,” to use St. John’s language ; between “ the mind 
of the Spirit ” and “ the mind of the flesh ” (the carnal mind), 
to use St. Paul’s language. “ That which is of the world ” 
the “ lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of 
life,” comprehending in this last the pride and self-sufficiency 
of the natural understanding — may, at the present time, 
include much more of professed and active unbelief than in 
many former ages ; but it does not, therefore, follow that the 
fortunes and hopes of Christianity are lower now than in the 
ages when professed orthodoxy was too often associated with 
all that is evil in the world’s appetites and passions. “ The 
mind of the flesh” — the “carnal mind” — may not now, as 
in some former periods, find it necessary, or at least con- 
venient, to disguise its “ enmity ” against the spiritual “ law 
of God ” and the nature-humbling faith of Christ ; but it 
would surely be a mistake therefore to infer that the faith 
of Christ and “the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus” 
have less power now than in those former periods ; it is an 
old maxim that an open foe is less dangerous than a hypo- 
critical professed friend. 
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