“Doubtless. As have been many of the world’s most earnest searchers. Yet he enunciated much truth, which we to-day are acknowledging. But, to resume, since Christianity as we know it is based upon the personality of a man, Jesus, we ask: Can the historicity of Jesus be established?”
“What! Do you mean: did he ever live?” queried Miss Wall in greater surprise than before.
“Yes. And if so, is he correctly reported in what we call the Gospels? Then, did he reveal the truth to his followers? And, lastly, has that truth been correctly transmitted to us?”
“And,” added Hitt, “there is still the question: Assuming that he gave us the truth, can we apply it successfully to the meeting of our daily needs?”
“The point is well taken,” replied Father Waite. “For, though I may know that there are very abstruse mathematical principles, yet I may be utterly unable to demonstrate or use them. But now,” he went on, “we are brought to other vital questions concerning us. They are, I think, points to which the theologian has given but scant thought. If we conclude that there is a God, we are confronted with the material universe and man. Did He create them? And what are their natures and import?”
“Well!” ejaculated Haynerd. “Seems to me you’ve cut out 19 a large assignment for this little party. Those are questions that the world has played football with for thousands of years. Do you think we can settle them in a few evenings’ study? I think I’ll be excused!”
“No! We can’t spare you,” laughed Father Waite. Then he glanced at Carmen, who had sat quiet, apparently unhearing, during the remarks. “I think you will hear things soon that will set you thinking,” he said. “But now we are going to let our traveled friend, Mr. Hitt, give us just a word in summation of his thought regarding the modern world and its attitude toward the questions which we have been propounding.”
The explorer leaned back in his chair and assumed his customary attitude when in deep thought. All eyes turned upon him in eager expectation.
“The world,” he began reflectively, “presents to me to-day the most interesting aspect it has assumed since history began. True, the age is one of great mental confusion. Quite as true, startling discoveries and astounding inventions have so upset our staid old mediaeval views that the world is hurriedly crowding them out, together with its God. Doctrines for which our fathers bled and burned are to-day lightly tossed upon the ash heap. The searchlight is turned never so mercilessly upon the founder of the Christian religion, and upon the manuscripts which relate his words and deeds. Yet most of us have grown so busy––I often wonder with what––that we have no time for that which can not be grasped as we run. We work desperately by day, building up the grandest material fabric the world has ever seen; and at night we repair the machine for the next day’s run. Even our college professors bewail the lack of time for solid reading and research. And if our young pursue studies, it is with the almost exclusive thought of education as a means of earning a material livelihood later, and, if possible, rearing a mansion and stocking its larder and garage. It is, I repeat, a grandly materialistic age, wherein, to the casual observer, spirituality is at a very low ebb.”
He thrust his long legs under the table and cast his eyes upward to the ceiling as he resumed: