on the side of historical criticism, physical science, or psychology, it is attacked with consummate skill, and the minds of the faithful are perplexed by the subtle objections of the adversaries. In former ages the anti-Christian controversy was conducted in a coarser fashion. The infidelity of Paine and Voltaire was revolting to spiritual minds, and though it supplied plausible arguments against Christianity to those who were already hostile, it was comparatively innocuous to true believers. A different and more deadly warfare is waged in the present day. An affected admiration of Christ and His teaching is paraded alongside of arguments which would sap His authority, and undermine all reverence for Holy Scripture. A weak, emasculated mixture, called Christianity, is substituted for the sacred utterance of the oracles of God, and mankind are told they may select this or reject that at their fancy, and construct each for himself a theory of religion to which the name of Christ is appended for decency's sake. There are of course endless modifications of the programme. Some schools of theosophists admit more than others. Some revere the person of Christ, and allow that

His teaching may have been true, but hold that we have so imperfect a report of His words, we cannot now obtain a true likeness of the original. Others, more foolhardy, deny that the Master Himself was infallible, and argue that His sayings may be criticised like Shakespeare's, and the wheat separated from the chaff by a process of eclecticism. Some base their arguments mainly on the corruptness of the sacred text; others on the ignorance of the men who wrote it; some accept the moral teaching, but reject the Supernatural; others find fault even with the morality. It would be wearisome and out of place here to review all the phases of modern unbelief; suffice it to say that their name is legion, and their influence is diffused most widely even among Christian society. It has struck the writer that the vigour of the defence has not been proportioned to the vehemence of the attack, and that more might be urged in favour of a sound and hearty faith in Scriptural Christianity than has yet been done. At all events, the arguments of apologists are too much confined to detached points of the system, and fail to set forth with sufficient emphasis what must always weigh most with the

average of human minds, viz., the credibility of the Christian revelation as a whole. We propose to consider in these pages some of the practical aspects of Christianity which recommend it to the unsophisticated human mind, and point out how irreconcilable are many of the modern objections with any plan of revealed religion that could possibly meet the wants of the human race,