we ought to welcome with all our hearts the searching scrutiny, which students and philosophers of all christian nations, and of all shades of belief, whether christian or not, are engaged upon, as to the facts on which our faith rests. the more thorough that scrutiny is the better should we be pleased. we may not wholly agree with the last position which the ablest investigators have laid down, that unless the truth of the history of our lord—the facts of his life, death, resurrection, and ascension—can be proved by ordinary historical evidence, applied according to the most approved and latest methods, christianity must be given[219] up as not true. we know that our own certainty as to these facts does not rest on a critical historical investigation, while we rejoice that such an investigation should be made by those who have leisure, and who are competent for it. at the same time, as we also know that the methods and principles of historical investigation are constantly improving and being better understood, and that the critics of the next generation will work, in all human likelihood, at as great an advantage in this inquiry over those who are now engaged in it, as our astronomers and natural philosophers enjoy over newton and franklin—and as new evidence may turn up any day which may greatly modify their conclusions—we cannot suppose that there is the least chance of their settling the controversy in our time. nor, even if we thought them likely to arrive at definite conclusions, can we consent to wait the results of their investigations, important and interesting as these will be. granting then cheerfully, that if these facts on the study of which they are engaged are not facts—if christ was not crucified, and did not rise from the dead, and ascend to god his father—there has been no revelation, and christianity will infallibly go the way of all lies, either under their assaults or those of their successors—they must pardon us if even at the cost of being thought and called fools for our pains, we deliberately elect to live our lives on the contrary assumption. it is useless to tell us that we know nothing of these things,[220] that we can know nothing until their critical examination is over; we can only say: “examine away; but we do know something of this matter, whatever you may assert to the contrary, and, mean to live on the knowledge.”

but while we cannot suspend our judgment on the question until we know how the critics and scholars have settled it, we must do justice, before passing on, to the single-mindedness, the reverence, the resolute desire for the truth before all things, wherever the search for it may land them which characterizes many of those who are no longer of our faith, and are engaged in this inquiry, or have set it aside as hopeless, and are working at other tasks. the great advance of natural science within the last few years, and the devotion with which many of our ablest and best men are throwing themselves into this study, are clearing the air in all the higher branches of human thought and making possible a nation, and in the end a world, of truthful men—that blessedest result of all the strange conflicts and problems of the age, which the wisest men have foreseen in their most hopeful moods. in this grand movement even those who are nominally, and believe themselves to be really, against us, are for us: all at least who are truthful and patient workers. for them, too, the spirit of all truth, and patience, and wisdom is leading; and their strivings and victories—aye, and their backslidings and reverses—are making clearer day by day that[221] revelation of the kingdom of god in nature, through which it would seem that our generation, and those which are to follow us, will be led back again to that higher revelation of the kingdom of god in man.

the ideal american, as he has been painted for us of late, is a man who has shaken off the yoke of definite creeds, while retaining their moral essence, and finds the highest sanctions needed for the conduct of human life in experience tempered by common sense. franklin, for instance, is generally supposed to have reached this ideal by anticipation, and there is a half-truth in the supposition. but whoever will study this great master of practical life will acknowledge that it is only superficially true, and that if he never lifts us above the earth or beyond the dominion of experience and common sense, he retained himself a strong hold on the invisible which underlies it, and would have been the first to acknowledge that it was this which enabled him to control the accidents of birth, education, and position, and to earn the eternal gratitude and reverence of the great nation over whose birth he watched so wisely, and whose character he did so much to form.