through His death.

There is one other modification of mind, characteristic of modern
times, of which we have yet to take account--I mean that which is
produced by devotion to historical study. History is, as much as
science, one of the achievements of our age; and the historical temper
is as characteristic of the men we meet as the philosophical or the
scientific. The historical temper, too, is just as apt as these
others, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps quite consciously, but under the
engaging plea of modesty, to pronounce absolute sentences which strike
at the life of the Christian religion, and especially, therefore, at
the idea of the Atonement. Sometimes this is done broadly, so that
every one sees what it means. If we are told, for example, that
everything historical is relative, that it belongs of necessity to a
time, and is conditioned in ways so intricate that no knowledge can
ever completely trace them; if we are told, further, that for this very
reason nothing historical can have absolute significance, or can
condition the eternal life of man, it is obvious that the Christian
religion is being cut at the root. It is no use speaking about the
Atonement--about the mediation of God's forgiveness to the soul through
a historical person and work--if this is true. The only thing to be
done is to raise the question whether it _is_ true. It is no more for
historical than for physical science to exalt itself into a theory of
the universe, or to lay down the law with speculative absoluteness as
to the significance and value which shall attach to facts. When we
face the fact with which we are here concerned--the fact of Christ's
consciousness of Himself and His vocation, to which reference has
already been made--are we not forced to the conclusion that here a new
spiritual magnitude has appeared in history, the very _differentia_ of
which is that it _has_ eternal significance, and that it is eternal
life to know it? If we are to preach the Atonement, we cannot allow
either history or philosophy to proceed on assumptions which ignore or
degrade the fact of Christ. Only a person in whom the eternal has
become historical can be the bearer of the Atonement, and it must be
our first concern to show, against all assumptions whether made in the
name of history or of philosophy, that in point of fact there is such a
person here.

This consideration requires to be kept in view even when we are dealing
with the mode