ave been--he has
risen through his investigation into belief; or whether, originally on
the believing side, he found the aspect so formidable, to himself or to
the world, of the difficulties and perplexities which beset belief,
that he turned to bay upon the foes that dogged him--must be left to
conjecture. It is impossible to question that he has been deeply
impressed with the difficulties of believing; it is impossible to
question that doubt has been overborne and trampled under foot. But
here we have the record, it would not be accurate to say of the
struggle, but of that resolute and unflinching contemplation of the
realities of the case which decided it. Such plunging into such a
question must seem, as he says, to those who do not need it, "audacious
and perilous"; for if you plunge into a question in earnest, and do not
under a thin disguise take a side, you must, whatever your bias and
expectation, take your chance of the alternative answers which may come
out. It is a simple fact that there are many people who feel
"dissatisfied with the current conceptions" of our Lord--whether
reasonably and justly dissatisfied is another question; but whatever we
think of it they remain dissatisfied. In such emergencies it is
conceivable that a man who believes, yet keenly realises and feels what
disturbs or destroys the belief of others, should dare to put himself
in their place; should enter the hospital and suffer the disease which
makes such ravages; should descend into the shades and face the
spectres. No one can deny the risk of dwelling on such thoughts as he
must dwell on; but if he feels warmly with his kind, he may think it
even a duty to face the risk. To any one accustomed to live on his
belief it cannot but be a hard necessity, full of pain and difficulty,
first to think and then to speak of what he believes, as if it _might
not_ be, or _could be_ otherwise; but the changes of time bring up ever
new hard necessities; and one thing is plain, that if ever such an
investigation is undertaken, it ought to be a real one, in good earnest
and not in play. If a man investigates at all, both for his own sake
and for the sake of the effect of his investigation on others, he must
accept the fair conditions of investigation. We may not ourselves be
able to conceive the possibility of taking, even provisionally, a
neutral position; but looking at what is going on all round us, we
ought to be able to enlarge our thoughts suffic