[Sidenote: Wesley's Advanced Views.]

This having been the teaching of the Methodist Episcopal Church from the
beginning, she has been little disturbed by the critical school. While
holding that the Bible is the sole rule of faith, she has not committed
herself to any one theory of inspiration. She has not believed the
Scriptures because they are written, but, being written, she has found
them true. She has believed in the supernatural power of the Gospel
because in her sight its leaven has wrought in the individual and in
society what it claims for itself. John Wesley believed that there were
God-breathed teachings outside of the Bible. He believed this because of
his feeling that the Divine Fatherhood must have spoken to other than
His Jewish children. Inheriting from our founder these thoughts, we have
kept a high degree of calm in these later days of inquiry and doubt.

[Sidenote: Wide Range of Unbelief.]

[Sidenote: Natural Immortality.]

[Sidenote: Reward and Punishments.]

We have already admitted that the present tendency to unbelief has wider
range and fresher foundations than our fathers knew. The belief in the
natural immortality of the human soul whether of Platonic or Christian
origin is shaken to an extent not known in a century. The doubts of
Huxley, the denials of Hæckel had a purely scientific basis. The
suspension of consciousness by sleep, by accident, by drugs, the decay
of mind by old age and by disease are freely put forth as proofs that
mind can not exist without the mechanism which supports and manifests
it. If this last be true a doctrine fundamental to Christianity must be