of the unknown teacher which filled me with light, illuminated my inner
vision, and brought out my indistinct presentiments in fuller clearness
before my soul. When I had thus experienced for the first time how the
human soul can believe, I read the Gospels as if they, too, had been
written by an Unknown man, and banished the thought as well as I could
that they were an inspiration from the Holy Ghost to the apostles, in
some wonderful manner; that they had been endorsed by the councils and
proclaimed by the church as the supreme authority of the alone-saving
belief. Then, for the first time, I understood what Christian faith
and revelation were."

"It is wonderful," said I, "that the theologians have not broken down
all religion, and they will succeed yet, if the believers do not
seriously confront them and say: 'Thus far but no farther.' Every
church must have its servants, but there has been as yet no religion
which the Priests, the Brahmins, the Schamins, the Bonzes, the Lamas,
the Pharisees, or the Scribes have not corrupted and perverted. They
wrangle and dispute in a language unintelligible to nine-tenths of
their congregations, and instead of permitting themselves to be
inspired by the apostles, and of inspiring others with their
inspiration, they construct long arguments to show that the Gospels
must be true, because they were written by inspired men. But this is
only a makeshift for their own unbelief. How can they know that these
men were inspired in a wonderful manner, without ascribing to
themselves a still more wonderful inspiration? Therefore they extend
the gift of inspiration to the fathers of the church; they attribute to
them those very things which the majority have incorporated in the
canons of the councils; and there again, when the question arises how
we know that of fifty bishops twenty-six were inspired and twenty-four
were not, they finally take the last desperate step, and say that