nscience lay in
the perceptible solicitude with which Mr Warricombe weighed these
disingenuous arguments. It was a hateful thing to practise such
deception on one who probably yearned for spiritual support. But he had
committed himself to this course, and must brave it out.

'Christianity,' he was saying presently--appropriating a passage of
which he had once made careful note--'is an organism of such vital
energy that it perforce assimilates whatever is good and true in the
culture of each successive age. To understand this is to learn that we
must depend rather on _constructive_, than on _defensive_, apology.
That is to say, we must draw evidence of our faith from its latent
capacities, its unsuspected affinities, its previsions, its
adaptability, comprehensiveness, sympathy, adequacy to human needs.'

'That puts very well what I have always felt,' replied Mr Warricombe.
'Yet there will remain the objection that such a faith may be of purely
human origin. If evolution and biblical criticism seem to overthrow all
the historic evidences of Christianity, how convince the objectors that
the faith itself was divinely given?'

'But I cannot hold for a moment,' exclaimed Peak, in the words which he
knew his interlocutor desired to hear, 'that all the historic evidences
have been destroyed. That indeed would shake our position.'

He enlarged on the point, with display of learning, yet studiously
avoiding the tone of pedantry.

'Evolution,' he remarked, when the dialogue had again extended its
scope, 'does not touch the evidence of design in the universe; at most
it can correct our imperfect views (handed down from an age which had
no scientific teaching because it was not ripe for it) of the mode in
which that design was executed, or rather is still being executed.
Evolutionists have not succeeded in explaining life; they have merely
discovered a new law relating to life. If we must have an explanation,
there is nothing for it but to accept the notion of a Deity. Indeed,
how can there be religion without a divine author? Religion is based on
the idea of a divine mind which reveals itself to us for moral ends.
The Christian revelation, we hold, has been developed gradually, much
of it in connection with secondary causes and human events. It has come
down to us in anything but absolute purity--like a stream which has
been made turbid by its earthly channel. The lower serves its purpose
as a stage to the higher, then it fal