240 
The vague and most unsatisfactory hypotheses which are often accepte<l 
and believed in as if they were well-ascertained truths of science would have 
but little chance of acceptance but for the doubt and confusion of thought 
concerning fundamental principles of religion and philosophy which now 
prevail, and which, indeed, may be said to characterise the time in which we 
live. An incomprehensible yearning after breadth of view and an inexpli. 
cable terror of being accused of being bigoted and narrow-minded seem to 
paralyse the judgment and render some of the most intelligent amongst us 
infatuated victims of materialistic inspiration. The longing for ever-increasing 
breadth of view has led to the acceptance and teaching of doctrines which are 
contradictory and in some instances mutually exclusive. Conclusions which 
involve the denial of the existence of God are not unfrequently accepted at 
this time by persons who profess to believe the Christian faith. Incom- 
patible and contradictory principles have been made to appear to harmonise 
by completely altering the meaning of the words employed, and it is 
doubtful whether any of the original meaning attached to certain most 
important words is now left. The word “God” is often used as if its whole 
meaning was comprised in creative power or first cause ; and, as to the word 
“ Christianity,” its meaning has been modified in so many ways of late that 
it would be most difficult to determine what is included and what excluded. 
In the time gone by Christian atheism would have been regarded as an 
absolutely impossible form of belief, but would it be quite impossible now 
to find persons ready, perhaps unconsciously, to justify the phrase Atheistic 
Christianity ? 
Some would have us believe that all things living have resulted 
from the working and inter-action of the forces belonging to non-living 
matter only, and expect us to be convinced further that the above view of 
the conversion of the non-living into the living, in obedience to laws which 
govern matter only, is not inconsistent with the acceptance of the belief in 
one creating, designing, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent will. It has 
also been held that a God who only creates the Universe, which he then 
practically abandons, is equivalent to a living God that governs the world 
and ordains everything according as He wills, — not only the Maker, but 
the Preserver of all things. But is there no interval between the idea of 
a first cause originally creating matter and enacting laws for its subsequent 
guidance and arrangement, and the idea of an existing, living God who 
governs the world, to whom men may with reason appeal for counsel and 
guidance, whom they may obey, and to whom they are indebted for life, 
and health, and everything ? Does first cause comprise all that men imply 
when they speak of the everlasting living God ? Does creative power and 
law-enaction include all the attributes of the God of man ? If so, it is 
indeed, as has been suggested, a very small matter if by modern discovery 
the scene of the operation of the first cause is put back in a past some- 
what more remote from our era than has been hitherto supposed to be 
the time of its activity. For in this case we should undoubtedly have, 
as has been suggested, a first cause to fall back upon, still a creator to 
