BY D.H. PATTERSON.

“For myself I still live and doubt. You know I can’t believe everything. There are so many things hard to believe I can’t see them.”

So wrote an honest, intelligent young man, who was standing on the verge of infidelity. Nor is he alone in his doubts. Many persons will not accept the Bible on account of its mysteries or miracles. To doubt seems to be as natural as to believe. Sir Wm. Hamilton says: “Philosophers have been unanimous in making doubt the first step in philosophy.” When Paul says, “Prove all things,” he tells us doubt a thing until it is tested. To doubt is not necessarily a fault, but to continue in doubt is blameworthy. If we are doubtful about a thing it is our duty as intelligent beings to examine the testimony concerning it, and so end our doubt. But shall we reject a thing because it is hard to believe? If the Bible had nothing in it hard to comprehend we would not be likely to accept it as divine in its origin; because the mind that comprehends a matter is no more limited, in regard to that matter, than the mind that conceived it. Consequently, if we could comprehend everything in the Bible there would be no divinity of infinite attributes about it to contrast with the limited powers of human nature. Its miracles are proof of its divine origin.

If you leave the Bible, to what will you go? Are all things hard to believe in the Bible? Does a man’s believing power rest upon flowery beds of ease in the teaching of infidelity? In the so-called realms of free-thought is there nothing hard to believe? Will it no more be said that

“Not a truth has to art or to science been given,
But brows have ached for it, and souls toiled and striven?”

Rejecting the Bible, you must either accept Deism or Atheism. Deism admits the existence of a God of infinite power and intelligence. A Deist need have no trouble in believing a miracle. The question with him is not, can God work miracles, and thereby reveal himself to man, but has he done it. Reason teaches us that intelligent design characterizes every act of God. Which theory ascribes the more intelligence to God the Deist’s or the Christian’s?

It is universally conceded that man has a worshiping nature. This is evinced by the almost universal idolatry of past ages. Would an act of wisdom reveal to man the true object of worship? Man has a conscience which smites him for his wrong doing, and approves him for his well doing. Would wisdom and love tell him what is right? Or would such attributes allow him to remain in ignorance of his duties? Man has a desire for eternal life; would Deity prepare a place of happiness for him and not reveal the fact to him, that he might better prepare for it, and enjoy the hope of it? Man has a desire for the knowledge of his origin, and for a knowledge of the attributes of his God; would an intelligent being create him with these desires and refuse to gratify them?

Surely there are some things in Deism hard to believe. Deism allows that man has in his nature this empty bucket, which is not to be filled during his stay in this world, if it shall ever be! Nor are these all the hard things which Deists ask me to believe. He wishes me to believe that the history of the Nazarene is legendary, that he was a fanatical enthusiast. Some Deists have refused to believe so hard a thing as this.

Yet I am asked to believe, in addition to this, that he, Christ, “has become,” as Renan says, “the corner-stone of humanity so entirely, that to tear his name from the world would be to rend it to its foundations.” I am asked, also, to believe, with Renan, the prince of Deists, that, “Whatever may be the surprises of the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young without ceasing; his legend will call forth tears without end; his sufferings will melt the noblest hearts; all ages will proclaim that among the sons of men there is none born greater than Jesus.” I am asked, with this same Renan, to “place the person of Jesus on the highest summit of human grandeur.” Is it not hard to believe all this about Jesus, and at the same time believe that he gave to the world a false religion? Truly there are many things hard to believe “I can’t see them!”

I can not believe that “the passion of an hallucinated woman gave to the world a resurrected God.” I can not believe that his legend was the fruit of a great, altogether spontaneous conspiracy. A conspiracy implies conspirators; and I can not believe that the apostles were such outrageous fools as to make a conspiracy, and work so zealously in it, and cling so firmly to it, when it promised nothing but stripes, imprisonments, hunger, nakedness, and death. Neither can I believe that these unlearned Galilean fishermen had the ability in themselves to concoct a conspiracy that would, and did, deceive nearly the whole civilized world. Nor can I believe that an ignorant, deluded Nazarene founded a religion that has held the attention of the thoughtful of all ages. He that refuses to believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, along with the claims of the Bible, has many more and greater difficulties in accounting for the existence of Christianity. It is here, and its existence is the greatest miracle man has ever witnessed. To deny its divinity only increases its wonderfulness. We can not have an effect without an adequate cause. It is hard to believe that humanity is an adequate cause of Christianity. For eighteen centuries it has been living and acting; persecuted by enemies without, and torn and betrayed by enemies within; oppressed by government, and corrupted by Popes and priests; shorn of its grandeur and glory by paganism; its spirituality crippled by stripes and animosities; its fervid love and deep piety replaced, to a great extent, by policy; its rites and ceremonies changed by councils; yet, it continues a monumental proof of the divinity of its glorious founder. Rescued from the wreck of the Dark Ages by Luther and others, it commends itself more and more to every reflecting mind as the only living religion of the present and future. Deliver me from the credulity that believes that such a wonderful soul-redeeming institution had its origin in the passion of a crazy woman or the conspiracy of a few ignorant fishermen.