we cannot honestly escape from the
inevitable dilemma. In paying a blasphemous reverence to Christ,
theologians have either placed him beyond the reach of our sympathies,
or have lowered God to the standard of humanity. Let us, if possible,
dwell with an emotion of brotherly love on the sufferings of every
martyr in the cause of humanity, but you sever the very root of our
sympathy when you single out one as divine and raise him to the skies.
Why stand we gazing into heaven when we have but to look round to catch
the contagion of noble enthusiasm from men of our own race? The ideal
becomes meaningless when it is made supernatural.

The same perplexity meets us at every step; we are to follow Christ's
example. Be humble, it is said, as Christ was humble. Theology indeed
would prescribe annihilation rather than humiliation. Man in presence of
the Infinite is absolutely nothing. Science, according to a glib
commonplace of popular writers, agrees with theology in prescribing
humility. But that very ambiguous word has a totally different meaning
in the two cases. Science bids us recognize the inevitable limitation of
our powers, and the feebleness of any individual as compared with the
mass. We can do but little: and at every step we are dependent upon the
co-operation of countless millions of our race and an indefinite series
of past generations. We are like the coral insects, who can add but a
hair's breadth to the structure which has been raised by their
predecessors. Yet the little which we can do is something; and we will
neither degrade ourselves nor our race. As measured by an absolute
standard, man may be infinitesimal, but the absolute is beyond our
powers. Science tells us that our little individuality might be swept
out of existence without appreciable injury to the world; but it adds
that the world is built up of infinitesimal atoms, and that each must
co-operate in the general result. Theology crushes us into nothingness
by placing us in the presence of the infinite God; and then compensates
by making us divine ourselves. Man is a mere worm, but he can by
priestly magic bring God to earth; he is hopelessly ignorant, but set on
a throne and properly manipulated he becomes an infallible vice-God; he
is a helpless creature, and yet this creature can define with more than
scientific accuracy the precise nature of his inconceivable Creator; he
grovels on the ground as a miserable sinner and stands up to declare
that