Life and letters of Phillips Brooks . eep that it has a perpetual tendency to defeatitself. Because it offers no substitute for the discarded reli-gion, it leaves mens religious natures unprovided for andhungry, and in this there is hope, for it gives to Christian-ity the perpetual advantage of human nature. In speakingof the deeper sources of unbelief he says: — It is not the difficulty of this or that doctrine that makes menskeptics to-day. It is rather the play of all life upon the funda-mental grounds and general structure of faith. It is the meetingin the commonest minds of great perpetua
Life and letters of Phillips Brooks . eep that it has a perpetual tendency to defeatitself. Because it offers no substitute for the discarded reli-gion, it leaves mens religious natures unprovided for andhungry, and in this there is hope, for it gives to Christian-ity the perpetual advantage of human nature. In speakingof the deeper sources of unbelief he says: — It is not the difficulty of this or that doctrine that makes menskeptics to-day. It is rather the play of all life upon the funda-mental grounds and general structure of faith. It is the meetingin the commonest minds of great perpetual tides of thought andinstinct which neutralize each other, such as the tides of faith andprovidence, the tides of pessimism and optimism, the tides of self-sacrifice and selfishness. Let this not seem too large or lofty an explanation of the com-monplace phenomena of doubt, which are thick around us in ourcongregations in the world. The reason why my hearer, who sitsmoodily or scornfully or sadly before me in his pew, and does not. o 5V, u X u Hy. jet. 41-42] PULPIT AND SKEPTICISM 205 cordially believe a word of what I preach to him, the reason whyhe disbelieves is not that he has found the evidence for inspirationor for Christs divinity or for the Atonement unsatisfactory. Itis that the aspect of the world, which is fate, has been too strongfor the fundamental religion of the world, which is the temptation of the world, which is self-indulgence, hasseemed to make impossible the precept of religion, which is self-surrender; and the tendency of experience, which is hopelessness,has made the tendency of the gospel, which is hope, to seemunreal and unbelievable. Because this is the character of the skepticism of the timeit cannot be overcome by any special skill in proving thistruth or disproving that error. The main method of meet-ing it must be not an argument, but a man. The methodwhich includes all other methods must be in his own man-hood, in his character,
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