ticism, which had hunted the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a Creator, has turned its attention to human society, and has found a place on this planet ten miles square where a decent man can live in decency, comfort, and security, supporting and educating his children, unspoiled and unpolluted; a place where age is reverenced, infancy respected, manhood respected, womanhood honored, and human life held in due regard when skeptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe, where the gospel of Christ has not gone and cleared the way and laid the foundation and made decency and security possible, it will then be in order for the skeptical literati to move thither and there ventilate their views. : Good Jean Paul Richter wrote of his own age: "It is a criticising and a critical one—a chaos of times struggling against one another; but even a chaotic world must have a center, revolution round that point, and an atmosphere." Even so our age also is chaotic; but thanks be to God it has a center-Christianity-around which morals, thought, and social order revolve, and an atmosphere of divine love permeating all things and prophetic of a nobler future. And judging from the futility of all attempts to destroy this center in the past, it will abide in the future as permanent and as fair as the mighty orb around which move harmoniously the dazzling worlds of the solar system. As the sun shines in its beauty, blessing the earth with light and heat, though fogs rise from marsh and moor and fen to obscure its lustre, so the Faith of Christ is too indispensable to the world for it not to gleam and beam on forever, penetrating all mists of unbelief, irradiating the human mind with the light of truth divine, and warming the desponding heart with glad experiences of heavenly grace. CHAPTER VIII THE THE ARGUMENT FROM ACHIEVEMENT HE battle which Miltiades waged on the plain of Marathon, on behalf of Hellenic freedom, was one of the most salient and far-reaching events in the cycle of human history. It not only decided the destiny of Athens, but it preserved Europe from the heavy chains of Asiatic slavery. Little did Callimachus realize when he gave his casting vote, which decided the Greek generals to meet the foe, what stupendous issues were to be determined by his action. Nor could any of the other noble hearts that thrilled with patriotism on that heroic day have foreseen the marvelous consequences of a fight in which neither the numbers engaged, nor the blood shed, nor the treasures lost entitle it to rank with the greatest engagements of ancient or of modern warfare. And yet, had it not been for Marathon, freedom would have expired; and as no nation can accomplish in thralldom what it can achieve in independency and liberty, Athens would have failed to be what she was to her own citizens; and though the Roman power might have spread over the world, had Athenian civilization been different the Empire, untutored by Greek genius, would not have been the purveyor of arts as well as arms, of letters as well as laws to mankind. But still far easier would it have been for a sagacious statesman standing in the famous region of the Tetrapolis, or surveying the field from Mount Pentelicus and reflecting on the defeat of the Persians, to anticipate and describe the results, comprehensive and wide-sweeping as they were fated to prove, of that glorious disaster than it would have been for the most gifted and foreseeing of the race to imagine, much less to predict, the ultimate effect on society, government, and humanity of that stern, sharp conflict between the Son of God and the hosts of darkness which gave to history the Christian religion. What could be more wretched and pitiable and what less promising of success in deeds of bold and high emprise than the condition of the first disciples of our Lord after the crucifixion, and indeed immediately following the resurrection. Without distinction or standing among their own countrymen, without resources of affluence or learning, without even perfect unity among themselves, and without inducements of a tangible kind to blind the eyes and win the allegiance of the mercenary, how hopeless apparently the task of conquering the nations. Confronted also by the bitter, deadly hostility of a venerable creed, and rendered obnoxious in the eyes of the population by its unrelenting maledictions, and antagonized by the combined force of all the mythologies and temples and worships on earth, and by the consolidated energy of all the vices, passions, oppressions, and hellish malignancy in man's heart, how vague and visionary the thought that the religion of the despised Nazarene might make its way through the earth accepted as the deliverer of men and of races! Unless the means to be employed in this gigantic undertaking were backed by, or were charged through and through with the supernatural, only the most excessive and invincible credulity could suppose them commensurate with the end proposed. There is something sublime and overwhelming in the calm assurance wherewith Christ announces the impregnability of his kingdom and sends forth his humble followers-friendless, homeless, defenseless— to disciple, or in other words, to Christianize all nations. His commission is the very superlative of fanaticism, or it is the commonplace of conscious Divinity. He speaks either as a frenzied enthusiast or as an inspired representative of that mysterious Power whose potencies are as equal to the conversion of a world as to its creation. Singularly impressive and pathetic also the unfaltering confidence of the little band of Christian heroes which, though the presence of the beloved Master had been withdrawn, impelled them onward in apparent indifference to the impassable barriers in their way. Whence came their unreasoning intrepidity? Or was it, after all, unreasoning? What if they were profoundly and unalterably convinced that they were the special ambassadors of God, and that the cause they were sent to champion, not only had his approval, but had emanated directly from his grace and must continue to have the support of his providence? What then? Why then in these circumstances we not only have the explanation of their serene trust, but we have also, if they were not deceived, the rational explanation of all the mighty things Christianity has wrought through the centuries. And this supposition gives rise to the inquiry with which we have to do in this chapter. Were they mistaken and could mere human ingenu ity, skill, and energy have brought to pass the many notable deeds and changes which have been effected in the name of Jesus? Man plus deity we know is more than the equivalent of all the triumphs of our Faith; but man plus nothing, or plus some purely natural facilities, is he equal to the results attained? This question can only be determined by a candid examination of the extent and character, the quantity and quality, of those products and outgrowths which are recognized as distinctively Christian. The fruit enables us not only to know the tree, but to know something of the soil and latitude in which it lives and thrives. Olive, palm, and banyan do not flourish in these northern climes, and when we see and taste their fruitage we are reminded of the zone to which they are indigenous as well as of the botanic class to which they respectively belong. What kind of fruit has the religion of our Lord borne, and is it of such flavor and richness as to warrant the belief that it could only have ripened on the boughs of a tree whose roots are in heaven? Can we determine the zone where this tree originally saw life and to which it permanently belongs? Is it indigenous to paradise or to some one among the multiplied and sickening gardens of earth? This is the real point at issue in THE ARGUMENT FROM ACHIEVEMENT, and its discussion ought to bring to light many honorable excellencies of Christianity, and at the same time confirm our faith in the divinity of its origin. The line of defense on which we now enter is very liable to abuse, as there is nothing so easy as exaggera |