In Conclusion.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3294, 12 July 1879, Page 4

In Conclusion.

And now, having reached a time of life when most subjects are grave, and when some have grown very solemn —when the angry passions of the controversialist can find no breath or aliment in the thin calm atmosphere of fading years—when egotism has little left" to gather round it—and when few sentiments survive in , pristine vividness but the love iof nature and the reverence for truth—l may be allowed one parting word, which, though personal, will scarcely be deemed obtrusive. I not only disclaim any position or feeling of antagonism to Christianity; I claim to have written this book on behalf, and in the cause, of the religion of Jesus, rightly understood. I entirely repudiate the pretentious of those whom I hold toi;have specially! misconceived and obscured^ that religion,' to be its exclusive or rightful representatives. I hold that thousands of the truest servants of our Lord are to be found among those who decline to wear what it is the fashion to pronounce his livery* with the grotesque and hideous facings of each successive age. I resent as an arrogant assumption the habitual practice of refusing the name of Christian to all who. shrink away from or assail the errors arid corruptions with which its official defenders have overlaid the faith of Christ. And I can find.no .words/of adequate condemnation for the shallow insolence of men, who are not ashamed..to,, -fling ;the nsnne.pf ■■" Atheist" on all whose '<-. concept tiob^qif the Deity are purer,, loftier, more Christian, than their own. Those< who dare' tot,-dogmatise about His nature,or His purposes, prove by that very daring their hopeless incapacity even to grasp^the skirts; or jcompreherid the conditions of that mighty problem^ Even if the human intellect could reach the truth abput.Him, human language would -hardly be ade« quftte tp give;expression, to, ithe* transcendent thought. Meanwhile; ■ recognising and lealising this with unfeigned humbleness <which yet has nothing disheartening itt'- its spirit, my own .conception perhaps from; early 1 mental habit, perKaps from incurable and very conscious^ metaphysical inaptitude—approaches Far nearer to the old current image of a Personal God, than to any of, the sublimated substitutes of modern, thought., Strauss's " ttn^yersum," Comte's "Humanity/ even I, Mr Arnold's ;" Power, ; not ■ Ourselves,' that makes for Righteousness," excite: in me no enthusiasm, command from me no worship.; I cannot pray to ■ the "Immensities " andthe "Eternities I? 1 of Oariyle. They proffer me no help; they; vouchsafe no sympathy; they suggest no comfort. It may be that & Persdnal. God is a mere anthropomorphic creation. It may be —as philosophers with: far finer instruments of thought than mine affirm —that the conception of: such a being, duty -analysed, is demonstrably a_ selfcontradiction. But at least in resting in it, ,£ rest, in; something I almost seem'tp realise ; at- least I share the view which Jesuß indisputably held of the Father' whom he obeyed; communed, with, and* worshipped; at least 1 escape the.indecent familiarity and the perilous rashness, stumbling .now into the grotesque,, now, into 'the , blasphemous,, > of, the, infallible creed-concoctors who stand confidently ready with their two foot rule;to measure the Immeasureable, to define; the Infinite, to describe in precise: scholastic phraseology the nature of the Incompre--hensible, and; the substance: of the -Great' Spiritf .of: the -Universe.-^-" Creed* of Christendom.?'—^W.R. Gkeg.. "-'' ;