CHAPTER 45

AN OLD DISCUSSION RENEWED

One morning a couple of weeks later Paul received a telegram. It read:

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Henson and I will arrive at five o'clock. CRAIG"

"Good news, Thalia," called Paul; and when she had read the despatch he added: "we'll keep them as long as possible. You may remember that Ralph Henson and Stuart Craig were close friends at the University. I knew that Stuart was coming East on business about this time, and I wrote him two weeks ago to stop off with us if he could. He has doubtless picked Henson up somewhere on the way. We'll have quite a reunion. By the way, you had better send down and invite Ned up to supper.'

A little after five o'clock a carriage drove up, and the two visitors alighted.

"It doesn't seem possible that it is so many years since we three were together last," said Paul, after the greetings. "We are not wholly without reminders of the lapse of time," said Stuart, as he stepped forward and grasped a hand of each of the two sturdy boys who were watching events from the middle of the hall. And for that matter, Henson and I have some reminders of our own at home." This is Mr. Craig, papa's old friend," explained Paul to the boys.

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"I know it," replied Guy promptly and decidedly; “I've known him for years and years.'

The laugh that followed this statement rather nonplussed the young man. Presently he slipped away, returning almost immediately with a photograph of Stuart, which he triumphantly thrust into the faces of the group.

"There's Mr. Craig," he exclaimed, "I've known him ever since I was a little boy."

"Of course you have," answered Thalia, clasping the boy to her side and guarding him against confusion from the fresh burst of laughter.

A few minutes later Dr. Gardner arrived; and a happy evening it was to them all.

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"I finished the business that called me East several days sooner than I expected," Stuart explained, "and one result is that I feel more at leisure than before for years. In New York I happened to run across Mr. Henson, who was about to return to Denver. You may not know that he is established there as an irrigation engineer. We agreed to travel West as far as Chicago together, and I persuaded him to stop over with me and visit you."

'Mr. Craig hasn't told quite all the story yet,” added Mr. Henson.

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No," continued Stuart; "the fact is, Henson and I have been talking religion, or rather, to be accurate, irreligion. You know he used to be as bluely orthodox as the rest of

us.

"Not all of us," interrupted Thalia. "Dr. Gardner and I must be counted out of that category."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Henson in surprise. “And were you never Christians?"

Mr. Henson's astonishment called forth a little laugh at his expense; in which he himself joined.

"You see now what an atmosphere of brimstone I have brought you into, Henson," said Stuart.

"Well, I am bound to confess that thus far I find the fumes not merely endurable but decidedly pleasant," replied Henson.

"Which feeling on your part," remarked Dr. Gardner, "would doubtless be pronounced by your pastor an alarming symptom of serious spiritual malady."

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Threatening speedy religious dissolution," added Stuart; and then he continued, addressing Paul, "as I was going on to say, Mr. Henson, like plenty of liberally educated fellows, has been gradually outgrowing his orthodoxy. Two years ago he spent a couple of days in Chicago with me, and we had a long talk on the subject then. I related to him, as well as I could remember, what we got from Dr. Harlow's lectures and what you had told me regarding the origin and development of Christian doctrine, and the reasons why the New Testament cannot be relied upon as a record of the teaching of Jesus. When I met him last Tuesday he thrust at me a lot of questions that I couldn't answer. And so, in addition to the fact that I knew we would both be welcomed by you for friendship's sake, I urged him to come and hear, with me, the result of your reading and

thinking since we broke away from the church. You have written me several times just enough to make me wish to hear more. I have also done some thinking and reading during these years, and I was desirous of comparing notes.

"As for myself," added Mr. Henson, "I am more than anxious to get at the truth about this, to me, most perplexing problem. I feel as though the writers I have consulted have placed me in the position of a juryman who, in a case of overwhelming importance, has heard a great number of witnesses, one half of whom have squarely contradicted the other half."

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And suppose one party," said Paul, “has told a story that, in the light of reason, history, and your own experience, appears entirely plausible and consistent with such facts as you already know; while the other party has related a tale improbable, absurd, unreasonable, and, more than that, mixed with a considerable amount of assertion that you know, from independent sources of knowledge, to be false, and some of it self-contradictory. What then?"

Certainly, as far as purely human testimony is concerned," responded Mr. Henson, "there is but one answer to that question.

"Well, is it not upon purely human testimony that we must rely in the last resort?" inquired Paul. "Suppose a man were to come to you to-day and place in your hand a manuscript, with the statement:

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Behold, a message from the true and living God!' "Where is the proof?' you ask.

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"I wrote it under divine inspiration,' solemnly declares the stranger.

"After gazing on the inspired one a moment with a feeling not closely akin to reverential awe, you inquire:

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Where are your credentials?'

I have none,' replies the divine messenger loftily; 'my word and the character of the writings are the evidence of my prophetic commission.'

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My dear sir,' he might expect to hear by way of reply, in tones not devoid of pity for his mental condition, 'you couldn't borrow fifty cents here on such credentials.'

"If you had plenty of time, you might glance into his book out of curiosity; and if you found it full of barbarous superstition, long-exploded scientific theories, falsehoods, obscenity, and hurtful, immoral advice, such as abound in

ALL A QUESTION OF HUMAN TESTIMONY

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the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, it would probably not greatly increase your surprise or materially modify your already formed opinion of the man who had thus challenged your credulity.

Now, that's about what Bible inspiration has to offer us in the way of credentials; except that, instead of the inspired prophet or apostle coming to us in person, he came-if he came at all-to a still more ignorant, superstitious, and credulous people some thousands of years ago. It's all a question of human testimony. Richard Hooker well and truly says:

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'Whatsoever we believe concerning salvation by Christ, although the Scripture be therein the ground of our belief; yet the authority of man is, if we mark it, the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture. The Scripture doth not teach us the things that are of God, unless we did credit men who have taught us that the words of Scripture do signify those things.'

"Now, why should we believe the declaration of an old prophet and despise that of a new one? Or why should any man forbear, through intellectual fear, to question the truth of the statement of any other man?

"But there!" exclaimed Paul in a different tone; "I did not mean to force this discussion on you before you were ready for it."

"You see," remarked Dr. Gardner, "Granger is so full of it that he often boils over before he knows it."

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"I, for one," said Paul, want to hear something of life as this Far-Westerner has found it. I have had hardly a glimpse in that quarter myself, thanks to Dr. Gardner's advice when I was striving to settle the momentous question as to what community I should favor with my services. Without saying anything against any part of this great country, I am profoundly grateful to Dr. Gardner for having kept me here in L-- when, in spite of a powerful influence here"-with a glance at Thalia that flushed her cheeks-"I was ripe to start for the ends of the earth; when, like many a fresh young man from college, I thought there was not room enough and appreciation enough in the overcrowded, effete East for me, but that the farther I went the bigger and better the field I should find for work."

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for

It is moderately safe," said Stuart with mock gravity, you to indulge in such reminiscences and such gener

alized injustice to the West; but beware!-say nothing specific against Denver."

It

"Or Chicago," quickly added Mr. Henson, amid laughter. The conversation thereafter ran on in an easy vein. was agreed that the friends should gather again the next evening for supper.

"I shall be professionally engaged all day to-morrow," said Dr. Gardner to Paul, who accompanied him to the door; so you need not expect me in during your religious discussion.

"I am sorry to hear that," replied Paul. "I may want your help.

"Yes, that's just what I am afraid of," replied Ned. “You can't foresee what sort of a controversy is ahead of you, and -as I said, I shall be professionally engaged. But if you get into a tight place, adjourn the meeting, and I'll see you before the next session. Above all things, don't let them tire you out. Good night."

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"By the way, Paul," said Stuart, when Paul returned, "how does your father take your change of religious views? I know you had some anxiety about that matter years ago." Yes, it was a consideration that troubled me not a little in advance, Stuart," replied Paul. "I knew, of course, that my father had no right to expect me to adopt any particular opinion on any subject merely because he had held that opinion; and yet I wanted to cause him as little pain as might be. I knew, too, that it was impossible for him to change his own views at his time of life and with his mental bent. I did not think it necessary or kind to break the news of my religious change to him suddenly and all at once. So I went at it gradually, letting him learn little by little that I no longer looked at these things as he did and as I had formerly. At the same time I was as considerate of his feelings in all other ways as I could be, and tried to make him understand that, however he and I might differ on religion or any other subject of honest controversy among men, it would make no difference in my personal feeling toward him as my father.

"Well, the first surprise that I met was the discovery that the extent of my change of views seemed to be a question of no special concern to him. With him it was not a question of degree. For me to have become a Universalist, to