there is nothing so important for us as that we should accept them and
live in accordance with them, join the societies that are organized on
them as a basis, do our utmost to extend their acceptance throughout
the world.

If they are not valid, then we ought to do our very best to prove this
also, and help those who are in bondage to these false ideas to attain
their liberty, in order that they may join with us in finding out that
which is true, in order that together we may work for the discovery of
the will of God, and that we may co-operate in helping the world to
find and obey that will.

You would suppose from the ordinary assumption of those who hold the
old creeds, and who have organized their churches on these creeds, as
foundation stones, that there had been at the outset a clear, a
definite revelation of truth, that it had been unquestioned, that it
had come with credentials enough to satisfy the world that the speakers
spoke by authority, and that the matter had from the beginning been
well understood.

It is assumed that we who do not hold these ideas are wilfully wrong,
that we are not inclined to accept the divine truth, that it is on
account of the hardness and wickedness of our hearts, and that we
prefer evil rather than good. We are told that we might know, if we
would, that the matter is definite, and has been perfectly well settled
from the beginning. This, I say, is the assumption.

Let us now, then, investigate the matter for a little while, just as
calmly, just as simply, just as dispassionately as we are able.