think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought
to know.' The forms of Christianity change, but Christianity
itself endures. And it would seem as if we might well be content
to wait until it was realised a little less imperfectly before we
attempt to go farther afield.

Yet the work of adaptation must be done. The present generation
has a task of its own to perform. It is needful for it to revise
its opinions in view of the advances that have been made both in
general knowledge and in special theological criticism. In so far
as 'Supernatural Religion' has helped to do this, it has served
the cause of true progress; but its main plan and design I cannot
but regard as out of date and aimed in the air.

The Christian miracles, or what in our ignorance we call miracles,
will not bear to be torn away from their context. If they are
facts we must look at them in strict connection with that Ideal
Life to which they seem to form the almost natural accompaniment.
The Life itself is the great miracle. When we come to see it as it
really is, and to enter, if even in some dim and groping way, into
its inner recesses, we feel ourselves abashed and dumb. Yet this
self-evidential character is found in portions of the narrative
that are quite unmiraculous. These, perhaps, are in reality the
most marvellous, though the miracles themselves will seem in place
when their spiritual significance is understood and they are
ranged in order round their common centre. Doubtless some elements
of superstition may be mixed up in the record as it has come down
to us. There is a manifest gap between the reality and the story
of it. The Evangelists were for the most part 'Jews who sought
after a sign.' Something of this wonder-seeking curiosity may very