"Down such-and-such a street I saw a man who was a drunkard redeemed by the power of an unseen Christ and saved from sin. That is a miracle." The best apologetic for Christianity is a Christian. That is a fact which the man cannot get over. There are fifty other arguments for miracles, but none so good as that you have seen them. Perhaps you are one yourself. But take you a man and show him a miracle with his own eyes. Then he will believe.

CHAPTER V.

PRIMITIVE ORTHODOXY.

Address by Prof. L. D. Townsend, of Boston University-Historical Account of Successive Attempts to Modify Christian DoctrinesNineteen Centuries of Failure-Triumphs of the Evangelical Faith-The World's Panacea To-day-A Marine Parable-The Liberal Ship and the Orthodox Ship.

AT the present time, and in all religious denominations, there are those who think, in all sincerity, that certain phases of the Gospel should be modified to suit popular taste; and that the time has fully come, as the saying is, to re-state the old creeds of Christendom. There is as yet, it is true, no general agreement as to just how sweeping the changes shall be. The opinion of one is that the doctrines of an inspired Bible, of the resurrection of the dead, of the vicarious atonement, should each be modified; the opinion of another is that the doctrine of future and endless punishment should no longer be urged as a motive to lead men to Christ. There are those, too, who think it possible that there may be a future probation for those who have had no probation in this life, and possibly a future probation for all. In point of fact, there would not be much left, excepting odds and ends, if all these different claimants for change and modification were allowed each to expurgate from Christianity what he thinks proper.

Now the men proposing these various changes in Christian belief are honest, earnest, intelligent, and whatever else there may be of excellence in Christian

character, it must be admitted, belongs to them as well as to others. Perhaps among the best of our acquaintances are those who, should they break their silence, would ask these questions: "May it not be as well for us to admit that Christ was a very good man, without claiming for Him supreme divinity?" "May it not be enough to say that evangelical Christianity will last for a time, and then, like all other things, pass away?" "Are we sure we are right, while maintaining the old views of resurrection, of inspiration, of a final judgment, of endless punishment, of no probation after death, and will not our mortification be less, in case of final defeat, provided we concede extreme grounds, occupy a middle position, and avoid thereby all controversy ?"

With the kindest feelings toward all, and with malice toward none, I am sure we can look calmly at a few historic facts bearing upon these problems. And in the first place, it is well to note that a plea for the modification of Christian doctrines is no new thing among men. In the first century the members of the Corinthian church greatly desired and clamored for an easier state of doctrinal affairs, and it required all the earnestness and energy of the Apostle Paul to control that tendency to drift from the moorings that already had been established. You need not look beyond that church at Corinth to find a larger proportion of nominal Christians who held to liberal constructions than can now be found in any evangelical church in New England. Nor can you find any modern church where morality is at such a deplorably low ebb as it was in that Corinthian community. That church at Corinth will remain forever a striking example of the coincidence of lax morality and liberalistic belief.

But passing down from Apostolic times, we discover that during the period extending from 90 to 320 there

were several efforts to re-state Christianity. Especially noteworthy was the attempt of Origen, who was an honest man, a great man, and the most learned one among the Church fathers. It is a fair inference that he confidently expected to establish the doctrine, not only of a future, but of an endless probation. Yet, notwithstanding his learning, eloquence, and influence, the mass of Christian people saw plainly enough that Christ's words and the words of the Apostles could not allow of any such interpretation. And Origen's views of an endless probation died with him. At least, they had no influence with the great body of Christian people.

It was during this same period that other distinguished men attempted various modifications. For instance, Clement, of Alexandria, made the teaching and example of Christ of more importance in the work of redemption than His death and suffering. It looked for a time as though there would be a reconstruction of Christianity. But Clement had not been long dead before scarcely any one opposed the more primitive and Apostolic view, namely, that the death and blood of Christ in human redemption are of pre-eminent significance.

Likewise during the second period, extending from 320 to 726, there were occasional waverings in belief. Gregory, who was a noted churchman, may be taken as representative of one phase of the progressive orthodoxy of those times. He appears to have been confident of the establishment of the doctrine that good is ultimately to succeed all evil. His voice and his pen were employed in the defence of that opinion. But his efforts, like those of Origen and Clement, were unavailing; they failed because Christian people felt, that upon the words of Christ and upon those of the Apostles, no such doctrine as the final dismissal of evil from the universe and

the ultimate happiness of all could possibly be established.

The era following Leo I., also in the times just preceding the Reformation under Luther and a century after the Reformation, and again in the time of Hobbes, which was "the age of the trifling head and corrupted heart," were periods of reaction and of break-ups in beliefs. During these different periods, the fundamental doctrines of Christianity were sneered at, and there seemed to be none who cared to do them reverence. But in each instance, men after a time became sick of their non belief. They craved something upon which their troubled souls could rest, and, as if in response to this longing, the Spirit of God came and fanned the pallid face of the Church into the glow of original health, and the Gospel, with all its primitive doctrines, clad anew in all the splendid form and power of truth, emerged from those seas of darkness and graced again the world with its cheerful and marvellous life. They were the fundamental Church doctrines, since recognized as our evangelical belief, that the hearts of men longed for, and when they were announced and embraced, men were satisfied.

Allow me to call attention to one other period, that extending from 1700 to 1740, which witnessed another season of general lapsing from primitive Christian life and doctrine into unbelief and immorality. The deadness existing in the Established Church of England is commented upon by all historians of that period. The fundamental doctrines of the Church were hardly thought of. The Church became a scene of heartless ceremonies, and its religion had nothing in it to cheer the people in their sorrow, or to inspire them to purity or holiness. In a word, drinking, gambling, cock-fighting, balls, and every species of popular vice received the patronage of