"Is your faith in God so weak then, and your reliance on yourself so firm, that you can believe nothing beyond your own comprehension?"
"I believe much that I do not understand. I believe the distance of the earth from the sun. I believe that the seed of a man is carried in a woman, and then brought forth to light, a living being. I do not understand the principle of this wondrous growth. But yet I believe it, and know that it is from God. But I cannot believe that evil is good. I cannot believe that man placed here by God shall receive or not receive future happiness as he may chance to agree or not to agree with certain doctors who, somewhere about the fourth century, or perhaps later, had themselves so much difficulty in coming to any agreement on the disputed subject."
"I think, Bertram, that you are going into matters which you know are not vital to faith in the Christian religion."
"What is vital, and what is not? If I could only learn that! But you always argue in a circle. I am to have faith because of the Bible; but I am to take the Bible through faith. Whence is the first spring of my faith to come? where shall I find the fountain-head?"
"In prayer to God."
"But can I pray without faith? Did any man ever kneel before a log, and ask the log that he might believe in the log? Had he no faith in the log, could it be possible that he should be seen there kneeling before it?"
"Has the Bible then for you no intrinsic evidence of its truth?"
"Yes, most irrefragable evidence; evidence that no thinking man can possibly reject. Christ's teaching, the words that I have there as coming from his mouth are irresistible evidence of his fitness to teach. But you will permit me to use no such evidence. I must take it all, from the beginning of my career, before I can look into its intrinsic truth. And it must be all true to me: the sun standing still upon Gibeon no less than the divine wisdom which showed that Cæsar's tribute should be paid to Cæsar."
"If every man and every child is to select, how shall we ever have a creed? and if no creed, how shall we have a church?"
"And if no church, how then parsons? Follow it on, and it comes to that. But, in truth, you require too much; and so you get—nothing. Your flocks do not believe, do not pray, do not listen to you. They are not in earnest. In earnest! Heavens! if a man could believe all this, could be in earnest about it, how possibly could he care for other things? But no; you pride yourselves on faith; but you have no faith. There is no such thing left. In these days men do not know what faith is."