re not merely excusing ignorance; or, under the
plea of mystery, evading a truth which has been stated in the New
Testament a hundred times, in the most literal form, and with all but
monotonous repetition. The greatest truths are always the most loosely
held. And not the least of the advantages of taking up this question
from the present standpoint is that we may see how a confused doctrine
can really bear the luminous definition of Science and force itself upon
us with all the weight of Natural Law.

What is mystery to many men, what feeds their worship, and at the same
time spoils it, is that area round all great truth which is really
capable of illumination, and into which every earnest mind is permitted
and commanded to go with a light. We cry mystery long before the region
of mystery comes. True mystery casts no shadows around. It is a sudden
and awful gulf yawning across the field of knowledge; its form is
irregular, but its lips are clean cut and sharp, and the mind can go to
the very verge and look down the precipice into the dim abyss--

"Where writhing clouds unroll,
Striving to utter themselves in shapes."

We have gone with a light to the very verge of this truth. We have seen
that the Spiritual Life is an endowment from the Spiritual World, and
that the Living Spirit of Christ dwells in the Christian. But now the
gulf yawns black before us. What more does Science know of life?
Nothing. It knows nothing further about its origin in detail. It knows
nothing about its ultimate nature. It cannot even define it. There is a
helplessness in scientific books here, and a continual confession of it
which to thoughtful minds is almost touching. Science, therefore, has
not eliminated the true mysteries from our faith, but only the false.
And it has done more. It has made true mystery scientific. Religion in
having mystery is in analogy with all around it. Where there is
exceptional mystery in the Spiritual world it will generally be found
that there is a corresponding mystery in the natural world. And, as
Origen centuries ago insisted, the difficulties of Religion are simply
the difficulties of Nature.

One question more we may look at for a moment. What can be gathered on
the surface as to the process of Regeneration in the individual soul?
From the analogies of Biology we should expect three things: First, that
the New Life should dawn suddenly; Second, that it should come "without
observation;" Thi