eans in Science.
It is the heresy of Spontaneous Generation, a heresy so thoroughly
discredited now that scarcely an authority in Europe will lend his name
to it. Who art Thou, Lord? Unless we are to be allowed to hold
Spontaneous Generation there is no alternative: Life can only come from
Life: "I am Jesus."

A hundred other questions now rush into the mind about this Life: How
does it come? Why does it come? How is it manifested? What faculty does
it employ? Where does it reside? Is it communicable? What are its
conditions? One or two of these questions may be vaguely answered, the
rest bring us face to face with mystery. Let it not be thought that the
scientific treatment of a Spiritual subject has reduced religion to a
problem of physics, or demonstrated God by the laws of biology. A
religion without mystery is an absurdity. Even Science has its
mysteries, none more inscrutable than around this Science of Life. It
taught us sooner or later to expect mystery, and now we enter its
domain. Let it be carefully marked, however, that the cloud does not
fall and cover us till we have ascertained the most momentous truth of
Religion--that Christ is in the Christian.

Not that there is anything new in this. The Churches have always held
that Christ was the source of Life. No spiritual man ever claims that
his spirituality is his own. "I live," he will tell you; "nevertheless
it is not I, but Christ liveth in me." Christ our Life has indeed been
the only doctrine in the Christian Church from Paul to Augustine, from
Calvin to Newman. Yet, when the Spiritual man is cross-examined upon
this confession it is astonishing to find what uncertain hold it has
upon his mind. Doctrinally he states it adequately and holds it
unhesitatingly. But when pressed with the literal question he shrinks
from the answer. We do not really believe that the Living Christ has
touched us, that He makes His abode in us. Spiritual Life is not as
real to us as natural Life. And we cover our retreat into unbelieving
vagueness with a plea of reverence, justified, as we think, by the "Thus
far and no farther" of ancient Scriptures. There is often a great deal
of intellectual sin concealed under this old aphorism. When men do not
really wish to go farther they find it an honorable convenience
sometimes to sit down on the outermost edge of the Holy Ground on the
pretext of taking off their shoes. Yet we must be certain that, making a
virtue of reverence, we a