To Infidelity and Back | Page 9

the fish. So with the Bible. I lay aside the things I cannot understand, and feast upon the rich spiritual food it contains, willing to wait until all mysteries shall be removed hereafter."
If the finite mind could understand everything contained in the Bible, it would become worthless as a revelation, for the finite mind could produce it. But since it reveals the infinite mind, we must expect it to contain things that the finite mind cannot understand. We can understand the evidence that it is from God and for our good, and it is reasonable that we should accept its great truths by faith, although we may not now be able to see how all the truths it reveals are consistent with each other. "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man."
As has often been said, no one can do better than to live the pure, clean, benevolent life that Jesus inculcated and incarnated. If you imitate him in goodness and good deeds, you are pursuing the best possible course, even if the Bible is not true. If, on the other hand, the Bible is true, and you do not live for Christ, you are doomed for ever and ever.
Having been delivered from the bondage of rationalism, I found my way back to Christ with comparative ease. If experience and facts are our ultimate guides, then we must trust the testimony of history. With the help of the _Bi-Millennial Telescope on the opposite page_, and limitless similar testimony, we can trace the existence of the Bible clear to the days of the Apostles. None ever had better means of knowing the facts they bore witness to than the Apostles, and none ever gave stronger proof that they sincerely told the truth as they knew it. The Gospels being genuine and reliable, the life and words and miracles of Jesus they narrate, give sufficient proof of the divinity of Christ to satisfy every reasonable demand of the intellect. This is especially true concerning the resurrection of Christ, on which the proof of Christianity hinges. "He showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs." And if he arose from the dead, he was demonstrated by it to be the Son of God. And if he is the Son of God, then the Bible is the Word of God, for he has endorsed it all. Thus there were restored to me Christ, God and his Word of truth. The thing that robbed me of these was rationalism, but it had been proven false and therefore was ruled out of court.
Unitarians used to tell me that Christ was the Son of God, but we all are sons of God. I now saw that Christ was the Son of God in the special and peculiar sense in which he claimed, or he was a fool. When he was on trial he was asked upon oath whether he was the Son of God or not, and he answered "Yes" when it cost his life to do so. If he meant that he was the son of God in the same sense in which we are, all he would have had to do was to explain and he could have saved his life.
The proof that Christianity is from God as revealed in its effect upon the life of individuals, communities and nations, is so apparent and has been pointed out so often that I will give it but a passing notice. "If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself," was Christ's challenge, and millions have verified it in their own religious experience. Nearly all the voluntary educational and philanthropic institutions of the world are supported by Christian people, and the nations of the earth are prosperous, enlightened and influential in the exact proportion as their people are intelligent and consecrated followers of the lowly Nazarene.
It was thus that I found my way back to Christ as my Lord and Saviour, and I never before fully appreciated the words of Jesus, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The truth dawned upon me gradually, but with irresistible force. How often have we been perplexed and in doubt on some great question of truth or duty until finally the solution came to us as if by magic. Through what the psychologists call subconscious cerebration our mind has been working at the great problem even when our conscious attention was given to other matters. I have had a number of such experiences before and since, and, had I not examined them critically, I might easily have