ngs, does them together, in the
same moment, in the same act. It throws a searchlight on our
perplexities and raises them to a high level. But in the very act of
so doing it raises the greatness of man to a higher level still. It
sharpens our consciousness of evil; thereby deepening our consciousness
of that in ourselves which opposes evil. Hear the Baron von Huegel.
"Christianity has not explained suffering and evil; no one has done so;
no one can do so. Yet it has done two things greater, more profound
and more profitable for us. From the first it has immensely widened
and deepened the fact, the reality, the awful potency and baffling
mystery of sorrow, pain, sin, things which abide with man across the
ages. But Christianity has also, from the first, increased the
capacity, the wondrous secret and force, which issues in a practical,
living, loving transcendence, utilization, transformation of sorrow and
pain and even of sin. Christianity gave to our souls the strength and
the faith to grasp life's nettle."

Observe that Christianity has done this _from the first_. And to the
last it will do the same. So far as I can see the religious
perplexities of to-day are not essentially different from those of
other times. They have indeed become more vocal, and there are more
people who can talk about them intelligently. But their nature is
unchanged. The first point to be noted about the religious
perplexities of to-day is their essential identity with those of
yesterday. They spring from the same root and they gather round the
same centres. Too much is being made of the special difficulties
besetting religion at the passing moment, those, for example, connected
with the progress of science and with the higher criticism--as though
this were the age of religious difficulty _par excellence_. Surely
that is a mistake. The difficulties of faith have _always_ been up to
the limit of human endurance. Religious belief has _always_ required
the full courage of the soul to sustain its high propositions. It has
_always_ been a "near thing," and those who speak of past ages when it
was easy are grossly misreading the history of the human mind. What
science and the higher criticism have done is to turn attention upon
new points, to divert perplexities into new channels, but not to alter
their essential character, not to change the stuff of which they are
made. The fact of evil is no discovery of the present age; it ha