in the physical process by which man has been planted on the earth, and it is still more evidently implied in the corresponding process of his spiritual enlightenment.  The deeper and more comprehensive view that we have been led to take as to the dealings of Providence has not by any means been followed by a depreciation of Christianity.  Rather it appears on a loftier height than ever.  The spiritual movements of recent times have opened men’s eyes more and more to its supreme spiritual excellence.  It is no longer possible to resolve it into a mere ‘code of morals.’  The Christian ethics grow organically out of the relations which Christianity assumes between God and man, and in their fulness are inseparable from those relations.  The author of ‘Supernatural Religion’ speaks as if they were separable, as if a man could assume all the Christian graces merely by wishing to assume them.  But he forgets the root of the whole Christian system, ’Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.’

The old idea of the Aufklaerung that Christianity was nothing more than a code of morals, has now long ago been given up, and the self-complacency which characterised that movement has for the most part, though not entirely, passed away.  The nineteenth century is not in very many quarters regarded as the goal of things.  And it will hardly now be maintained that Christianity is adequately represented by any of the many sects and parties embraced under the name.  When we turn from even the best of these, in its best and highest embodiment, to the picture that is put before us in the Gospels, how small does it seem!  We feel that they all fall short of their ideal, and that there is a greater promise and potentiality of perfection in the root than has ever yet appeared in branch or flower.

No doubt theology follows philosophy.  The special conception of the relation of man to God naturally takes its colour from the wider conception as to the nature of all knowledge and the relation of God to the universe.  It has been so in every age, and it must needs be so now.  Some readjustment, perhaps a considerable readjustment, of theological and scientific beliefs may be necessary.  But there is, I think, a strong presumption that the changes involved in theology will be less radical than often seems to be supposed.  When we look back upon history, the world has gone through many similar crises before.  The discoveries of Darwin and the philosophies of Mill or Hegel do not mark a greater relative advance than the discoveries of Newton and the philosophies of Descartes and Locke.  These latter certainly had an effect upon theology.  At one time they seemed to shake it to its base; so much so that Bishop Butler wrote in the Advertisement to the first edition of his Analogy that ’it is come to be taken for granted that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry; but that it is now at length discovered