of the struggles of past ages becomes
indirectly a contribution to the evidences, by supplying the knowledge of
similarity and contrast, which is necessary, as a preliminary, before
entering on a new conflict.

The dangers to faith in the present day are sometimes exaggerated; but
there cannot be a doubt that we live in a time when old creeds are in
peril; when the doubt is the result not of ignorance, but of knowledge,
and acts in the minds that are pre-eminent for intellectual influence, and
advances with a firmness that is not to be repelled by force but by
argument. It is not the duty of Christians to shut their eyes to the
danger, like the ostrich, which supposes by burying her eyes in the sand
to avoid the huntsman's arrow. There seems accordingly special reason why
in such an age an acquaintance with the forms of doubt is requisite on the
part of those who have to minister the religion which is the subject of
attack.

If accordingly a clergy is to be trained up likely to supply the
intellectual cravings of the present day, they must be placed on a level
with its ripest knowledge, and be acquainted with the nature and origin of
the forms of doubt which they will encounter. The church has indeed a
large field, where work and not thought is to be the engine which the
clergy must use in their labours; truly a home mission, where men and
women for whom Christ died, require to be lifted out of their mere
animalism, and taught the simplest truths of Christ, and prayer, and
immortality: and noble are the efforts that Christians have made, and are
making, for an object so religious and philanthropic; but there is a
danger lest this very energy of work, which accords so naturally with the
utilitarianism of the English character, should lead us to forget that
there is an opposite stratum of society, to which also Christianity has
its message, which is only to be reached by the delicate gifts of
intellect and by the ripest learning.

If Christianity is to be presented to this class, adapted to the demands
of the age so far as they are reasonable, but unmutilated and unaltered in
its body of revealed doctrine, preserving in its integrity the faith
delivered to the saints; so that apostles might recognize it as being that
which they themselves taught, and for which they laid down their lives; it
is necessary that Christian students should be trained specially for the
work, by a learned and intelligent appreciation of truth,