his readers were ready to believe in a divine Author of nature, he called upon them to believe in a divine Author of Christianity. Very different is the prevalent phase of unbelief today. In the thought of this age deism is thoroughly discredited. No religious or philosophic system ever paid so poor interest on the investment of faith required for its acceptance as deism. If a man is able to stretch his faith so far beyond the reach of sensuous experience or of mathematical demonstration as to believe in a personal God, it seems absurdly foolish to forego the comfort and the inspiration which lie in the belief in a heavenly Father and to make his personal God the worthless caput mortuum of deism. The unbelief of today refuses either to predicate or to deny the personality of the ground of all existence, maintaining that that question transcends the reach of human faculty, and that the only philosophical attitude is the holding of opinion in abeyance. Agnosticism is the unbelief of to-day; and arguments addressed to the deist make no impression upon the agnostic.

But while, outside of the pale of Christianity, there is less disposition now than in the last century to concede or accept the existence of a personal God, there has been a wonderful change in the attitude of non-Christian thought toward the person of Jesus Christ. A profound reverence for the character of Jesus is almost as characteristic of the heretical thought as of the orthodox thought of our time. Compare the scurrilous blasphemy of Paine with the tender sentimentalism of Renan, and you will find a striking illustration of this change of feeling toward Jesus. The writer remembers once, when he was younger than he is to-day, quoting in a sermon the exquisitely beautiful sentences which form the conclusion of Renan's Life of Jesus, and he remembers how some venerable saints in the congregation shouted their rapture over that tender tribute to the memory of their Lord. In view of this twofold change in the character of prevalent nonChristian thought it is not strange that Christian apologists have come to ask themselves the question whether the evidence of Christianity is not stronger than the evidence of theism, and whether, in assuming theism as a basis, and appending Christianity thereto as a corollary, they have not failed to show the

real strength of the evidence of the truth which they have sought to defend.

But the change in the order and perspective of apologetics is not due alone to the change in the prevalent form of unbelief. It is due chiefly to a change in the general character of the thought of the age. Believers and disbelievers in Christianity float on the same stream of the world's thought, and feel the impulse of the same current. The thought of the eighteenth century was bound at all hazards to be systematic; the thought of the nineteenth century cares not whether it is systematic or not. Eighteenth century investigators were unwilling to march into the territory of the unknown, except in the most elaborate and punctilious military order. Nineteenth century investigators deploy as skirmishers, and are content if, by the most irregular scientific bushwhacking, they can bring in a few captive facts. Eighteenth century thought on every subject aimed to lay down first principles which were axiomatic or capable of somewhat easy proof and then to proceed to ulterior conclusions by a rigorous process of deduction. Nineteenth century thought is chiefly inductive. It conjures up an hypothesis, and tests it by its coincidence or lack of coincidence with facts. Only exceptionally are its hypotheses capable of verification, by some crucial experiment or observation which absolutely excludes all alternative opinions. In the vast majority of cases its hypotheses find a provisional verification in that the tout ensemble of phenomena appear to accord with the chosen hypothesis more fully than with any alternative one. It is a striking illustration of this change in intellectual habit that those sciences whose work is largely mathematical and deductive attained a condition of relative maturity much earlier than those sciences whose work is mainly observational and inductive. Newton's Principia, the epochmaking masterpiece of deductive science, belongs to the close of the seventeenth century. Darwin's Origin of Species, the epoch-making masterpiece of inductive science, belongs to the middle of the nineteenth century.

This change in the general habit of thought of the times changes naturally the order and perspective of apologetics. Eighteenth century apologetics had to be systematic and con

secutive. It must make theism the fundamental proposition, and proceed to build the evidence of Christian revelation upon the foundation of theism. But the consecutive method, although perfectly adapted for subjects in which demonstration is possible, is essentially ill adapted for subjects in which the reasoning can be only probable. In geometry we can start with axioms which may be accepted as substantially certain, and Proposition 1 may be deductively inferred from axioms and definitions. In the demonstration of Proposition 2 we may use Proposition 1, as well as the axioms and definitions, and so on through the series. The same virtual certainty that marks the axioms at the beginning is carried forward with force essentially undiminished to the end. But this mode of procedure is not equally effective on subjects where demonstration is impossible. If we have two premises, the probability of whose truth may be expressed in each case by the fraction, the resultant probability of the conclusion, on the assumption that these premises include all the evidence for the truth of the conclusion, has a value of only. If we proceed to use that conclusion as a premise for further consecutive reasoning it is evident that the force of the probability is weakened at every step until the argument comes to be of utterly insignificant value.

But the traditional presentation of Christian evidences was not merely subject to the weakness that is inherent in a consecutive presentation of evidence on a subject which does not admit of demonstration. The argument came to be burdened with a gratuitous accumulation of inconsistencies. The outline of procedure in apologetics has, in fact, often been substantially as follows: Proposition 1. There is a God, because the religious intuitions of humanity affirm that there is a God. Proposition 2. There is need of revelation, because the religious intuitions of humanity are so conflicting and uncertain that they are good for nothing. Proposition 3. Christianity is a revelation from God, because the religious intuitions of humanity approve it. If the reader who has reached that stage in the treatise has any lingering faith in either God or man it may be matter of thanksgiving.

From a consecutive we must be led to a cumulative presen

tation of the evidence. Our apologetic must conform, not to the consecutive and deductive model of eighteenth century thought, but to the hypothetical and inductive model of nineteenth century thought. The verification of belief must be sought, not in a single invincible line of argument, but in the conformity of the belief to an assemblage of multitudinous phenomena, in the convergence of lines of evidence drawn from different and apparently disconnected classes of facts. It was remarked long ago by Lord Bacon that the confirmation of scientific theories depends upon the mutual coherence and adaptation of their parts, whereby they sustain each other like the parts of an arch or dome.* No finer example of this dome of hypothesis is afforded in the history of human thought than in the case of that theory of evolution whose discovery and verification has been the great intellectual achievement of the nineteenth century. Do we believe in evolution because organs appropriated to different uses maintain a homology of structure? or because the bodies of animals and plants are full of rudimentary organs? or because the successive stages of development of the embryo are in large degree approximate recapitulations of the series of earlier and lower species? or because the geological record shows in successive ages a gradual expansion of organic types, a progressive ascent to forms of higher grade, and a gradual approximation to the fauna and flora of to-day? or because successive faunas and floras in the same region reveal a similarity which suggests community of origin? or because the boundary lines of all groups recognized in zoological and botanical classification grow more indefinite with increasing knowledge? No. Not one of these classes of facts would be sufficient to establish a reasonable probability for the doctrine of evolution. The probability of the doctrine lies precisely in that all these different and independent lines of argument converge to one conclusion, in that the idea of evolution gives an intelligible and unitary significance to all these classes of facts which are otherwise disconnected and meaningless. In like cumulative form must be exhibited the convergence of evidence toward

*Theoriarum vires, arcta et quasi se mutuo sustinente partium adaptatione, qua quasi in orbem cohærent, firmantur.

the truth of Christianity. Nature, with its myriad adaptations and its all-pervading order and law, its omnipresent aspect of intellectuality; man, with his inextinguishable sense of responsibility and his irrepressible religious aspirations; the historic Jesus, with his stainless life and his unparalleled teaching; Christianity, with its doctrines so sublime, so comforting, and so ennobling; Christendom, with its vast philanthropies and its new type of civilization-these constitute an ensemble of facts which must be rationally accounted for. The idea of a heavenly Father revealed in Christ Jesus gives to them all an intelligible and unitary significance.

The real evidence, then, for Christianity is not found in any one line of argument, but in the convergence of all lines. The dome rests, not on one pillar, but on many pillars. But, although the dome must be supported on every side, and its strength is dependent upon the many-sidedness of its support, it is not necessary that all the pillars should be equally strong or should sustain equal proportions of the weight of the structure. And, while the strength of Christian evidence consists in the convergence of various lines of evidence, it does not necessarily follow that those various lines of evidence are equally important. Nor will the comparative importance of different lines of evidence be the same in different ages. Of the various convergent lines of evidence we believe there are two which are especially impressive to the thought of the present age. One of these is found in the effects of Christianity. And here we come to formulate the unconscious logic of our childhood's faith in Christianity. The noble lives and characters of those who in our childhood were nearest and dearest to us were a proof of the truth of that religion which expressed itself in life and character. It is in this view an inspiring thought that the duty of the Church is not merely to expound, but to make, the evidence of Christianity. The world beholds the daily miracle of souls dead in sin rising into the life of goodness, and, as in the ancient days, the multitudes glorify God, who hath given such power unto

men.*

But of all evidences of Christianity to modern thought the

* Matt. ix, 8.