essential facts of the Christian revelation, and more deep and
fruitful principles than a man can keep and make his own in the
course of a lifetime, however purely and faithfully he lives and
strives. To myself the doubtful matters are things absolutely
immaterial, like the debris of the mine, while the precious ore
gleams and sparkles in every boulder.

What, in effect, these critics say is that a man must not discuss
religion unless he is an expert in theology. When I try, as I have
once or twice tried, to criticise some current conception of a
Christian dogma, the theological reviewer, with a titter that
resembles the titter of Miss Squeers in Nicholas Nickleby, says
that a writer who presumes to discuss such questions ought to be
better acquainted with the modern developments of theology. To that
I demur, because I am not attempting to discuss theology, but
current conceptions of theology. If the advance in theology has
been so enormous, then all I can say is that the theologians fail
to bring home the knowledge of that progress to the man in the
street. To use a simple parable, what one feels about many modern
theological statements is what the eloquent bagman said in praise
of the Yorkshire ham: "Before you know where you are, there--it's
wanished!" This is not so in science; science advances, and the
ordinary man knows more or less what is going on; he understands
what is meant by the development of species, he has an inkling of
what radio-activity means, and so forth; but this is because
science is making discoveries, while theological discoveries are
mainly of a liberal and negative kind, a modification of old
axioms, a loosening of old definitions. Theology has made no
discoveries about the nature of God, or the nature of the soul; the
problem of free will and necessity is as dark as ever, except that