a
growing value for experience, and with bolder ventures upon
experience, men have found that their conception of Jesus deepens
and grows; he means more to them the more they are. And, as was
noted in the first chapter, in a rational universe, where truth
counts and error fails, the Church has risen in power with every
real emphasis laid on Jesus Christ. What does this involve?

So far our records. To-day we are living in an era when great
scientific discoveries are made, and more are promised. Geology once
unsettled people about Genesis; but closer study of the Bible and of
science has given truer views of both, and thinking people are as
little troubled about geology now as about Copernican astronomy. At
present heredity and psychology are dominating our minds--or,
rather, theories as to both; for though beginnings have been made,
the stage has not yet been reached of very wide or certain
discovery. There is still a great deal of the soul unexplored and
unmapped. No reasonable person would wish to belittle the study
either of evolution or of psychology; but the real men of science
would probably urge that lay people should take more pains to know
the exact meaning and scope of scientific terms, and to have some
more or less clear idea in their minds when they use them. However,
all these modern discoveries and theories are, to many men's minds,
a challenge to the right of Christians to speak of Jesus Christ as
they have spoken of him, a challenge to our right to represent the
facts of Christian life as we have represented them--in other words,
they are a challenge to us to return to experience and to see what
we really mean. If our study of Jesus in the preceding chapters has
been on sound lines, we shall feel that the challenge to face facts
is in his vein; it was what he urged upon men throughout.

The old problem returns upon us: Who and what is this Jesus Christ?
We are involved in the recurrent need to re-examine him and
re-explore him.

There are several ways of doing so. Like every other historical
character Jesus is to be known by what he does rather than by "a
priori" speculation as to what he might be. In the study of history,
the first thing is to know our original documents. There are the
Gospels, and, like other historical records, they must be studied in
earnest on scientific lines without preconception. And there are
later records, which tell us as plainly and as truthfully of what he
has done in t