there is a convergence towards truth or a divergence from it. In the sphere of human beliefs he holds further, that, given opportunity, the nearer to truth the greater certainty of survival. Given opportunity, as already postulated, the law of beliefs is the survival of the truest. Truth will prevail.
Dynamical elements of Christianity.
Dynamical doctrines in other spheres
To the student of Christianity, again, that same concurrent testimony is profoundly interesting. Certain Christian ideas are being assimilated in India. Certain cardinal aspects of Christianity are proving themselves possessed of inherent force and attractiveness. They are showing that they possess force not from authority, or tradition, or as part of a system of doctrine, or as racially fitting, but when presented in new and often very unfavourable surroundings. Borrowing an expression from physical science, certain elements of Christianity are proving themselves dynamical. For in non-Christian India, ecclesiastical authority or tradition and the system of Christian doctrine as such, possess no force. By illustrations from other spheres, let us make clear what is meant by such dynamical elements of Christianity. The doctrine of the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection was put before the world by
Darwin in 1859, and within the half century has been accepted almost as an axiom by the whole civilised world. Undoubtedly that doctrine has proved itself dynamical. On the other hand, a few years earlier than the publication of The Origin of Species, another body of new doctrine was propounded to Britain and the world, and strongly urged by its upholders, namely, the doctrine of Free Trade—the advantage to the community of buying in the cheapest market. True or false, that body of doctrine has not proved dynamical among the nations, for the great majority of peoples still repudiate the doctrines of Free Trade. Similarly certain elements of Christianity are commending themselves to new India, and certain others are failing to do so at this time.
Illustrations from the history of Christianity.
From century to century these dynamical elements of Christianity may vary; and it is profoundly interesting to the student of the history of religious beliefs to observe the variation. In the early apostolic times, when the apostles and disciples were "scattered abroad," we see plainly in the Acts of the Apostles that the dynamical element of Christianity is the Resurrection of Our Lord. It is that which tells, and His coming reign—with Jewish audiences in particular. It
was, e.g., the manifestation of Christ to St. Paul on his way to Damascus that completed the conversion of his life. And so, repeatedly throughout the record of the Acts of the Apostles, they are described as witness—bearers of the resurrection to the outside world. [Greek: Megalê dynamei], "with great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus; and great grace was upon them all."[49] And yet—dynamical elements vary—in the different atmosphere of Athens (we are twice told in so many words) this same resurrection of Christ dug a gulf between St. Paul and the Athenians.[50] Passing to a very different period, the latter half of the eighteenth century, the period of the rise of Methodism and the revival of religion in England, the period of new interest in the inmates of prisons, of agitation for the abolition of slavery, of the foundation of all the great missionary societies, the period of the French Revolution and the demand at home for extension of the franchise, all outcome of the same inspiration,—what was the strong epidemic thought? Reading the religious history of the time, we feel that the power that passed from soul to soul was a tremulously intense realisation of the family of God
and the love of God for men, represented in Christ's voluntary death upon the cross, love for the neglected and the enslaved in their sins and their sorrows. And again in our own day, when we are tempted to say that the consciousness of God and the eternal, the primary religious instincts, are fading, what by common consent is really dynamical among educated men? Assuredly not the shibboleths of High or Low Church. It is the person of Jesus Christ that is dynamical; what He was on earth, what He has been ever since in the hearts of individuals and in the Church. In a real sense we are starting again from and with Himself. Anticipating, let us say that these two elements most recently dynamical in Britain have had force likewise in India.
India a new touch-stone of Christianity.