our Lord has been forced upon us at the present time. It is
impossible to ignore it or set it aside. We must be prepared,
each of us, however much we may shrink from treading on such
sacred ground, to give a reason for the hope that is in us with
reverence and fear.

I will ask you here and now to consider the matter briefly under
four heads. First, I will try to give the evidence for the belief
in this article of the Creed during the second century; next, I
will ask you to consider the evidence of St. Matthew and St. Luke;
thirdly, we will consider the argument e silentio on the other side;
and lastly, I will ask you to reflect on the theological aspect
of the question.



THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION

I will therefore, without any further preface, plunge into the
middle of the subject, and ask you, first of all, to consider
afresh that 'throughout the Church the statement of the belief in
the Virgin-Birth had its place from so early a date, and is
traceable along so many different lines of evidence, as to force
upon us the conclusion that, before the death of the last Apostle,
the Virgin-Birth must have been among the rudiments of the Faith
in which every Christian was initiated;' that if we believe the
Divine guidance in the Church at all, we must needs believe that
this mystery was part of "the Faith once for all delivered to
the Saints."