And so the
world, the religious world as well as the rest, might let Him go His way,
and vanish from the eyes and minds of men, leaving behind little more
than a regret that one so gifted and so fascinating should have proved--I
hardly like to say the words, and yet they must be said--so unsafe and so
unsound a teacher.
I shall not give now the reasons which have led me, and not in haste, to
this melancholy conclusion. I shall only say that I have come to it,
with pain, and shame, and fear. With shame and fear. For when I ask you
the solemn question, Would you know Christ if He came among you? do I not
ask myself a question which I dare not answer? How can I tell whether I
should recognise, after all, my Saviour and my Lord? How do I know that
if He said (as He but too certainly might), something which clashed
seriously with my preconceived notions of what He ought to say, I should
not be offended, and walk no more with Him? How do I know that if He
said, as in Judea of old, "Will ye too go away?" I should answer with St
Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life,
and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God?" I dare not ask that question of myself.
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