“Since Christianity is not true,” wrote Ernest Renan, “nothing interests me, or appears worthy my attention.”  That is the logical result of losing the knowledge of spiritual things,—­a life without real interest, without deep worth,—­a life with a broken spring.

But suppose Renan is mistaken.  Suppose Christianity is true.  Then the first thing that makes it precious, is that it answers our questions, and tells us the things that we must know in order to be happy.

Christianity is a revealing religion, a teaching religion, a religion which conveys to the inquiring spirit certain great and positive solutions of the problems of life.  It is not silent, nor ambiguous, nor incomprehensible in its utterance.  It replies to our questions with a knowledge which, though limited, is definite and sufficient.  It tells us that this “order of nature, which constitutes the world’s experience, is only one portion of the total universe.”  That the ruler of both worlds, seen and unseen, is God, a Spirit, and the Father of our spirits.  That He is not distant from us nor indifferent to us, but that He has given His eternal Son Jesus Christ to be our Saviour.  That His Spirit is ever present with us to help us in our conflicts with evil, in our efforts toward goodness.  That He is making all things work together for good to those that love Him.  That through the sacrifice of Christ every one who will may obtain the forgiveness of sins and everlasting peace.  That through the resurrection of Christ all who love Him and their fellow-men shall obtain the victory over death and live forever.

Now these are doctrines.  And it is just because Christianity contains such doctrines that it satisfies the need of man.

“The first and the most essential condition of true happiness,” writes Professor Carl Hilty, the eminent Swiss jurist, “is a firm faith in the moral order of the world.  What is the happy life?  It is a life of conscious harmony with this Divine order of the world, a sense, that is to say, of God’s companionship.  And wherein is the profoundest unhappiness?  It is in the sense of remoteness from God, issuing into incurable restlessness of heart, and finally into incapacity to make one’s life fruitful or effective.”

What shall we say, then, of the proposal to adapt Christianity to the needs of the world to-day by eliminating or ignoring its characteristic doctrines?  You might as well propose to fit a ship for service by taking out its compass and its charts and cutting off its rudder.  Make Christianity silent in regard to these great questions of spiritual existence, and you destroy its power to satisfy the heart.

What would the life of Christ mean if these deep truths on which He rested and from which He drew His strength, were uncertain or illusory?  It would be the most pathetic, mournful, heartbreaking of all phantoms.

What consoling, cheering power would be left in the words of Jesus if His doctrine were blotted out and His precept left to stand alone?  Try the experiment, if it may be done without irreverence:  read His familiar discourses in the shadow of agnosticism.