lectual efforts to arrive at it are
in vain; that it is given to those to whom it is given, and withheld
from those from whom it is withheld. It may be that the existing belief
is undergoing a silent modification, like those to which the
dispensations of religion have been successively subjected; or, again,
it may be that to the creed as it is already established there is
nothing to be added, and nothing any more to be taken from it. At this
moment, however, the most vigorous minds appear least to see their way
to a conclusion; and notwithstanding all the school and church building,
the extended episcopate, and the religious newspapers, a general doubt
is coming up like a thunderstorm against the wind, and blackening the
sky. Those who cling most tenaciously to the faith in which they were
educated, yet confess themselves perplexed. They know what they believe;
but why they believe it, or why they should require others to believe,
they cannot tell or cannot agree. Between the authority of the Church
and the authority of the Bible, the testimony of history and the
testimony of the Spirit, the ascertained facts of science and the
contradictory facts which seem to be revealed, the minds of men are
tossed to and fro, harassed by the changed attitude in which scientific
investigation has placed us all towards accounts of supernatural
occurrences. We thrust the subject aside; we take refuge in practical
work; we believe, perhaps, that the situation is desperate, and hopeless
of improvement; we refuse to let the question be disturbed. But we
cannot escape from our shadow, and the spirit of uncertainty will haunt
the world like an uneasy ghost, till we take it by the throat like men.

We return then to the point from which we set out. The time is past for
repression. Despotism has done its work; but the day of despotism is
gone, and the only remedy is a full and fair investigation. Things will
never right themselves if they are let alone. It is idle to say peace
when there is no peace; and the concealed imposthume is more dangerous
than an open wound. The law in this country has postponed our trial, but
cannot save us from it; and the questions which have agitated the
Continent are agitating us at last. The student who twenty years ago was
contented with the Greek and Latin fathers and the Anglican divines, now
reads Ewald and Renan. The Church authorities still refuse to look their
difficulties in the face: they prescribe for m