INTRODUCTION

of man

THERE are no questions which have so deeply en- God and the destiny grossed the human race as those regarding the existence of its God, the immortality of man's soul, and the relationship of that soul to its Creator. Life is full of perplexing problems, and we are everywhere confronted with "the Riddle of the Universe," and with sin and suffering. Man's existence as an individual is short, and his days are full of many sorrows and cares. Sunshine and shadow, storm and calm, chequer his career, and his heart is ever restless, ever longing for that which never comes-perfect happiness. The richest and the poorest, the wisest and the most ignorant

-all alike must die; all alike seek to live and prolong their sojourn, in hopes of obtaining a few more years of what pleasure life can give them. And in every heart is implanted the mysterious yearning for life after death; in every heart is the fond hope of perfect peace in reunion with those “whom we have loved long since, but lost awhile". And yet amidst it all ever arise the questions, "Is there a God, seeing that the world is so full of evil?"

Modern views

"Have I an immortal soul, or does all end in
death?" The Daily Telegraph gave witness some
time ago to the truth of our statement, in its
long controversy, "Do we believe?" And at the
beginning of this twentieth century, there are
thousands of honest souls in perplexity about it
all, scores of learned sceptics whose cleverly
written books make men despair of knowing the
truth. Books are written to show that "God is
only "Force," or that He is the "Unknowable,"
or that in Pantheism we can have our only know-
ledge of Him.
of Him. We are told that human and
animal souls are only Life, and that Life is but a
phenomenon of matter under certain conditions,
vanishing when those conditions cease. We read
that moral obligations are not of Divine sanction,
but only arise from the need of order between man
and man. Religion, say they, is but a poetic phase
of man's existence, based on nothing better than
dead hero worship, or the cult of Nature in its
many forms. The countless learned treatises which
appear to-day, and are in everybody's hands, would
claim to prove convincingly that it is waste of
time to concern oneself about another world, about
God, the Soul, or Religion. And yet despite all
this erudition, there is no man whose mind is not
ever asking, "What am I to believe?" It is no
part of the design of this book to attempt an

answer to these subjects.

They are

They are being dealt with in the present series, separately, and we must refer to the other volumes for the reply to such questions as "Is there a God?" "Is the human soul immortal?" "Is Revelation possible?" "Are miracles possible?" These are all subjects of profound importance, and each needs a separate and careful explanation. In this work we address ourselves to those who believe in the Infinite and Personal First Cause, with its corollary of the possibility of miracles; to those who believe in the immortality of the soul, with the soul's consequent relationship to God, and its consequent need of Revelation. It falls to our lot here, to answer the important question whether Jesus Christ is God, or in other words, whether the Christian Religion is the Revelation of God to man: for, if the answer be in the affirmative, then God has spoken to His creatures with no faltering voice, and every man is bound by his reason to listen and obey. Christi- Nature of anity comes before the world with a peremptory claim on the obedience of every living soul. It declares from the mountain tops that it, and it alone, possesses the fulness of Divine Revelation; that it, and it alone, has the right to the love and unswerving devotion of the human race; that it, and it alone, is the Divine Witness Whom all must hear and obey.

The claims are bold. Is

Christian

Revelation

must deal with mysteries

the testimony to the justice of these claims equally strong? Let us make the position clear. The Christian Church demands our belief in doctrines which no effort of the unaided human reason could discover, in doctrines which, though not in conflict with reason, are yet beyond its powers of perfect comprehension. It calls for faith in mysteries, and for a faith which shall know no doubt. And in doing so it neither acts irrationally, nor does it do violence to reason, or to the rights of the human mind. God is infinite and man is finite. Can the finite mind grasp the knowledge of the Infinite? God Himself is beyond the perfect comprehension of man, for if man could fully understand God, then would his mind be no longer finite, for it would grasp the Infinite, and we should have two infinites, which is an absurdity. When then the great First Cause reveals some of the wonders of His Godhead, we must be brought face to face with what to us is a mystery, something we cannot fully understand. Hence true revelation must deal with what is to us not wholly comprehensible. Yet can that mystery never contradict true Reason, for the latter is as much a manifestation of God's truth as is the former. We have referred at some length to this matter with the object of showing that it is irrational to suppose that we are to reject Christianity, because it contains mysteries, or that we are to reject