The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-09-14
WHY SHOULD CHRISTIANITY NEED
PROVING?

ut doesn't matter" what man be-
lieves. James Mill has some weighty
words in condemnation of this SLOW
emily and contemplate habit of mind.
He says: GAS our opinions are the
fathers of our actions, to be indiffer
ent about the evidence of our opin-
ions is to be Indifferent about the
consequences of our actions. But
the consequences of our actions are
the good and evil of our fellow Great
ures. The habit of neglecting evil
dence is therefore the habit of disre-
garding the good and evil of our fell
low creatures. 1t is the habit of
hard -heartedness on the largest scale,
rooted in the deepest part of the
mind. This habit is the foundation
of most of what is vicious and de-
graded in human character" Mill
was right. To form our beliefs at
random is breach of our highest
intellectual duty. The late Professor
Tyndall once unwisely said that
Christianity rewards men for vice
the vice of believing upon insufficient
evidence. And there is famous
story of freethinker who commended
that no religion was credible if it
needed any evidence at all, for chad
God wished to give mankind a reve-
lation, he would have left no chances
of doubt, but would have written it
upon the open sky"
At first sight there seems much
plausibility in this contention that it
would have been more in harmony
with Gods benevolent design if he
had given us overwhelming proofs of
the truth of revelation. But the
plausibility disappears when we re-
fleet that Christianity could not be
more evident, intellectually, without
becoming less effective, morally. If
assent to it were compelled by evil
dence ever present and all-convinc-
ing, evidence so overwhelming as to
need no effort of memory to recall it.
and no effort of judgment to weigh
it, then our moral life would become
no more than thing of mechanism.
If it were possible to produce uni
versal belief in Christianity by de
monstrative evidence, such an achieve
ment would be contrary to the actual
method of Christ and to the purpose
of God. The methods of God are in
harmony with his ends. If he is
training us to know the unseen as
more real and substantial than the
seen, he will not use for this purpose
instruments which would in effect
induce us to dispense with training.
He deals with us as Jesus dealt with
his Galilean disciples. He will not
encourage us to be ignorant, or stu
pid or careless about truth. He re-
quires, as the path to knowledge in
every branch of truth, that the truth.
seeker shall observe attentively and
shall reason carefully. Why should
we be surprised that he should i'm
pose the same requirements upon the
search for the highest of all truths
Religions If he did not, he would
be departing from the whole a alogy
of the universe, and breaking his fun
damental rules of progress.
And, let it be remembered, not
only doee the path to all other kinds
of truth require this same slow and
patient investigation which is re-
quired for religion, but the darkness
which envelopes the search for relig-
ious truth envelopes also every other
field of human knowledge. Too often
the man of physical science looks
scofingly down upon the insufficient
evidence and frail uncertainty of
Christianity. Let him look at home,
and ask himself how much positive
certainty really philosophic eye
will be able to find in even the most
fundamental propositions of his
boosted science.
Any man accustomed to the subtle
scrutiny of metaphysical investiga-
ton, will be able to tell him that
neither in science, nor even in every
day life, is there single solitary
thing of which we are logically justi-
fed in feeling absolutely certain. ex-
cept just the fact of our present con-
seriousness, the fact, for instance, that
l believe in certain chain of events
as having been those of my past life.
But when proceed beyond this, and
think that those events really had an
existence, and did really happen to
me, ought no longer to feel certain.
How can l know that I am not the
victim of some miserable delusion7
Experience has absolutely no ground
on which to stand, except by assum-
ing that our memory and our intel