65 
Under these circumstances Christianity, which touches every 
department of thought and lays its blessing or its ban on 
every act and circumstance of life, could least of all expect 
to be exempt from the keen scrutiny of awakened, daring, 
self-willed intellect. And the schools of intellect, the work- 
shops of inquiry, I mean our Universities, themselves emanci- 
pated from all tests and from all restraints, could not but be 
chief centres of such questioning as I have described. 
What is still more to be noted is that the very prevalence of 
the Christian life could not but lead to the spread of critical and 
unfriendly questioning as to the claims of Christianity, and to 
the development of an infidel propagandism. There could not 
be such intense action without corresponding reaction ; such 
peremptory and all-invading claims without rebellion of spirit 
being stirred up in the “carnal mind”; such missionary aggres- 
sion and propagandism as that of Christianity among all classes 
during the last half-century without provoking infidel aggres- 
sion and propagandism in return. When Christianity was 
torpid, and only known by its creeds and forms, infidelity 
was a latent foe. The intense life of Christianity has stirred 
and quickened its enemies into activity. The signs, therefore, 
which some construe as ominous of future danger and reverse 
to the Christian Church are themselves, in great part, only 
the consequences and evidences of the triumph of active 
Christianity in this modern age of stir and life. Like the 
wash and the wake which the swift steamer leaves behind 
her as she rushes through the sea, and which seem to be 
sweeping backwards as if in resistance to the grand vessel’s 
advance, these signs of antagonism serve, in effect, to measure 
and to mark the line and rate of progress to which they are 
opposed. Like the backwater or counter-tide on some portions 
of our southern coast, they are themselves the result of the 
great and true tide-sweep to which the law and set of their 
own movement seems to be opposed. 
These considerations, however, would not avail to quiet our 
apprehensions for the future if there were reason to fear 
that the school of critical or philosophic or scientific thought 
in our Universities and elsewhere would be permanently 
alienated from Christianity and the Christian faith. I cannot 
admit such a fear. I think there are clear reasons why we 
must come to a contrary conclusion. Philosophy , in certain 
schools, and at certain times, has seemed again and again to 
revolt from the Christian alliance, but it has always come back 
again. The recent revival and spread of a masquerading 
materialistic scepticism in this country was due to special 
causes, and is already beginning manifestly to decline. The 
yon. xm. f 
