to the human soul to live its fullest life, to man to be his fullest being.  There are, no doubt, other reasons which present themselves to men, and of those I do not speak.  I will not think that the men who are listening here to me now, in a base and low way shrink from the evidence of Christianity and from the life of Christ because they do not want to enter into that religion because it would make too great demands upon them in the sacrifices that they would be called upon to make.  It is said sometimes, and I doubt not that it is sometimes true, that men will not see the power and truth of Christianity because they do not want to see it.  It seems to me that the other is also often true, and it is that upon which we would much rather dwell.  Men sometimes hesitate at Christianity and tremble, and will not enter into the great region that is open to them, because they do not want it so intimately.  The critical, the sceptical disposition is very often born just of man’s perception of the glory of the life that is offered to him, and of the intense desire that is at the bottom of his soul to enter into that life.  Who is the man that criticises the ship most carefully as she lies at the wharf, that will see what capacity she has for the great voyage that she has set before her?  Is he the man who means to linger carelessly upon the bank and never sail away, or the man who is obliged, if she can sail across the ocean, to go with her?  Just in proportion to the depth of interest with which we look upon all Christian truth we must be deep questioners with regard to the truth of that truth.  We must search into all its evidence.  We must try to understand how it commends itself to all our minds.  But first of all we want to know certainly what Christianity is, if it is able to deal with the thing with which we are puzzling or never to give an intelligent definition of it.

How is it now?  I go to a certain man and ask him, “Why do you not believe in Christianity?” and he says, “It is incredible.  I cannot believe in it.”  “What is it that you cannot believe in?” and then he takes forsooth some little point of Christian doctrine, some speculation of some Christian teacher, some dogma of some Christian church, and says, “That is incredible,” as if that were Christianity.  Over and over again men are telling that they do not believe in Christianity, when the real thing that they do not believe in is something that is no essential part of Christian faith whatsoever.  They never have given to themselves a real definition of what the Christ and the Christianity in which they are called upon to believe, into which they are invited to enter, really is.  The lecturer goes up and down the land and in the face of mighty audiences he denounces Christianity.  He declares it to be unintelligible and absurd, to be monstrous and brutal.  And when you ask what it is that he is thus denouncing, what it is that he is thus convicting over and over again, you find that it is something