h easier to revile the
infidel. This as a test of loyalty should be pinned: we shall shut up
thereby the hypocrite. And the earnest man, more conscious of his own
burden, will be more sympathetic, generous and just, and will come to be
more logical and to see what Newman well remarked, that one who asks
questions shows he has no belief and in asking may be but on the road to
one. If to ask a question is to express a doubt, it is no less, perhaps,
to seek a way out of it. "What better can he do than inquire, if he is
in doubt?" asks Newman. "Not to inquire is in his case to be satisfied
with disbelief." We should, acting in this light, instead of denouncing
the questioner, answer his question freely and frankly, encourage him to
ask others and put him one or two by the way. Men meeting in this manner
may still remain on opposite sides, but there will be formed between
them a bond of sympathy that mutual sincerity can never fail to
establish. This is freedom, and a fine beautiful thing, surely worth a
fine effort. What we have grown accustomed to, the bitterness, the
recriminations, the persecutions and retaliations, are all the evil
weeds of prejudice, growing around our principles and choking them. They
are so far a denial of principle, a proof of mental slavery. Our freedom
will attest to faith: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is
Liberty."

VIII

This, in conclusion, is the root of the matter: to claim freedom and to
allow it in like measure; rather than to deny, to urge men to follow
their beliefs: only thus can they find salvation. To constrain a man to
profess what we profess is worse than delusion: should he give lip
service to what he does not hold at heart, 'twere for him deceitful and
for us dangerous. Where his star calls, let him walk sincerely. If his
creed is insufficient or inconsistent, in his struggle he shall test it,
and in his sincerity he must make up the insufficiency or remove the
inconsistency. This is the only course for honourable men and no man
should object. To repeat, it puts an equal burden on all--the onus of
justifying the faith that is in them. Life is a divine adventure and he
whose faith is finest, firmest and clearest will go farthest. God does
not hold his honours for the timid: the man who buried his talent,
fearing to lose it, was cast into exterior darkness. He who will step
forward fearlessly will be justified. "All things are possible to him
who believeth." Many on b