misapprehension of the Gospel is an error of such long standing.
Even the strongest current of water cannot add a drop to a cup
which is already full.

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-
witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the
simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if
he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of
doubt, what is laid before him.

The Christian doctrine is presented to the men of our world to-day
as a doctrine which everyone has known so long and accepted so
unhesitatingly in all its minutest details that it cannot be
understood in any other way than it is understood now.

Christianity is understood now by all who profess the doctrines of
the Church as a supernatural miraculous revelation of everything
which is repeated in the Creed. By unbelievers it is regarded as
an illustration of man's craving for a belief in the supernatural,
which mankind has now outgrown, as an historical phenomenon which
has received full expression in Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, and
Protestantism, and has no longer any living significance for us.
The significance of the Gospel is hidden from believers by the
Church, from unbelievers by Science.

I will speak first of the former. Eighteen hundred years ago
there appeared in the midst of the heathen Roman world a strange
new doctrine, unlike any of the old religions, and attributed to a
man, Christ.