only a ground-work for its essential feature, which is the conception of
a relationship of the individual believer to a mystical being at once
human and divine, the Risen Christ. This being presents itself to the
modern consciousness as a familiar and beautiful figure, associated with
a series of sayings and incidents that coalesce with a very distinct and
rounded-off and complete effect of personality. After we have cleared
off all the definitions of theology, He remains, mystically suffering
for humanity, mystically asserting that love in pain and sacrifice in
service are the necessary substance of Salvation. Whether he actually
existed as a finite individual person in the opening of the Christian
era seems to me a question entirely beside the mark. The evidence at
this distance is of imperceptible force for or against. The Christ we
know is quite evidently something different from any finite person, a
figure, a conception, a synthesis of emotions, experiences and
inspirations, sustained by and sustaining millions of human souls.

Now it seems to be the common teaching of almost all Christians, that
Salvation, that is to say the consolidation and amplification of one's
motives through the conception of a general scheme or purpose, is to be
attained through the personality of Christ. Christ is made cardinal to
the act of Faith. The act of Faith, they assert, is not simply, as I
hold it to be, BELIEF, but BELIEF IN HIM.

We are dealing here, be it remembered, with beliefs deliberately
undertaken and not with questions of fact. The only matters of fact
material here are facts of experience. If in your experience Salvation
is attainable through Christ, then certainly Christianity is true for
you. And if a Christian asserts that my belief is a false light and that
presently I shall "come to Christ," I cannot disprove his assertion. I
can but disbelieve it. I hesitate even to make the obvious retort.