value of the Christian religion.

[Footnote 1: Denney. Studies in Theology.]

[Sidenote: Bible Appeal for Verification.]

[Sidenote: Gracious Ability.]

[Sidenote: Huxley's Passionless Impersonality.]

[Sidenote: Gracious Conditions for Belief.]

[Sidenote: Ethical Conditions for Faith.]

I now wish to declare my own confidence that the verification of the
truths contained in the New Testament was never intended to rest upon
an absolutely inerrant record or on an inspiration which dictated to a
personality rather than expressed itself through a personality. The
Bible presupposes a power in man to test and verify its statements and
doctrines. It makes its appeal to this steadily from the earlier books
to the later; the appeal growing in content as the soul has developed
its power of recognition. This is the familiar law of knowing and doing,
of proving by practice, of perceiving the leadership of Jesus Christ
through the leading of the Holy Ghost. As to doctrine, there is left in
man the power to make the beginning of a faith. On this beginning
devotion builds a belief in the greater mysteries. Thus reason deduces a
First Cause, then the unity of the First Cause. This is as far as reason
can go. Huxley, looking out on the universe with this power, said:
"There is an impassable gulf between anthropomorphism, however refined
and the passionless impersonality underlying the thin veil of phenomena.