or whether we confine our view to existing systems, such as Mahometanism, or Brahminism, or Buddhism, the striking fact is that not one of them ever professed to base itself upon Truth. They never seem, indeed, to have thought of any such thing as Truth in relation to their religious faith. Mahomet forbade his law to be read. But Christianity invites enquiry, and everywhere assumes that there is such a thing as Truth; that this Truth is in itself; and that it may most certainly be discovered and known from the Scriptures, so far as it is necessary for it to be known for the moral purposes of man's life. Nor is this further circumstance to pass unnoticed: by founding its claims upon Truth, and requiring in its disciples belief in it as Truth, and that they should act the part of Truth, Christianity has given a dignity to Truth which it never possessed in the world before.† Truth is Truth, and sooner or later it will make itself universally felt as such; corresponding with everything, correcting everything, satisfying everything in human nature, and reconciling all its apparent contradictions, restoring at once Truth to man, and man to Truth. "Belief in the truth," "receiving the truth in the love of it," is represented as necessary to man's everlasting

* We give this statement upon the authority of Pascal.

+ It follows from this that that religious system must be the truest which most has the effect of making men true in all their conduct-their speech, their actions, their appearance, their whole character. But it is notorious that, in some so-called Christian countries, you never can depend upon the people either to speak truth or to act truth. This applies not o England. The noble distinction of Englishmen as Protestants is their truthfulness. What an argument this involves in favour of the religion of England!

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salvation, and as the instrumental means of their salvation. Indeed, the term "Truth," "the Truth," “the word of truth," "the Spirit of truth," "the truth of God," and other cognate phrases, occur more frequently in the Scriptures than any others. They are repeated again and again in every variety of relation to God, to man, and to his religious belief and duty; so that no one who professes to believe the Bible, can have any doubt that there is such a thing as Truth to be found in "the Scriptures of truth," as they speak of themselves. The only question that can be raised is, as to the proper method of finding out with certainty what is the Truth?

"What is Truth?" (meaning thereby as a defined, ascertained thing) is a question, we grant, much more easily asked than answered. Even in human matters, and where it relates to facts, Truth, we know, is not always ascertainable without difficulty. Still more difficult is its ascertainment in moral questions, these either lying beyond the range of human thought, or dwelling in the dim, misty region of sentiment as respects man's own mind, and having to be viewed through the medium of perceptions that are subject to all kinds of perversions. As looked at, too, in the Scriptures, it has so many cross lights, that it becomes far from easy to see its clear outlines, as a distinct and definable thing. A great deal depends upon the position we take up in relation to it. If a man turns his back upon the sun, he may see the rainbow, but not the sun. Some will play at prismatic colours with Heaven's Truth, not content with it as pure light. In its centralized wholeness, Truth

appears as bright as the sun; but from its excessive brightness the very light that invests it surrounds it with a measure of darkness, and makes it difficult of distinct discernment. It is not to be wondered at, then, that men still often ask with some sort of doubtfulness, "What is Truth?"

Viewed in the abstract, Truth is only another name for Beauty-moral Beauty, arising out of the perceived fitness of things when well-fitted; and such is the attractiveness of this in the Ideal, as its image is seen through the unperturbed medium of man's dispassionate intelligence, that all men admire Truth as it is thus reflected in themselves, though few recognize it when it appears exterior to themselves. This sense of the moral beauty of Truth, which is indigenous to the human mind, is one sure evidence that the thing exists, whatever difficulty there may be in recognizing it when it takes an operative form. To those who have eyes to behold it, there is a solemn grandeur, an awful loveliness, about Truth, like that of the starry heavens on a clear night, when the myriads of bright worlds, various in their orbits, but all under one law, move in perfect silence round the one great centre of universal Power-the one law they obey being Truth.

It being admitted that there is such a thing as Truth-Truth in Religion—it will not be denied that the question, “What is Truth?" is of the deepest moment, and, in its moral relation, concerns every man living. None can shift off the responsibility that attaches to it; none can escape from its appeals. Though it should be disregarded through indifference,

or huffed aside through impatience, it will continually return and demand an answer. Every one who acknowledges the importance and value of Truth, whether it be in Philosophy, or in Physics, or in relation to life in general, is bound by that acknowledgment to set an equal value, at least, upon Truth in Religion, and to use equal efforts for its discovery; and not only so, but to admit its claims to be considered as Truth, unless he can show that there are not things true, yet just as inexplicable, in Philosophy, and of a similar kind, to what encounter us in Religion. Assuming that there is such a thing as a true Religion in which Truth lies latent, the only question is, Can it in any way be ascertained, and, if so, how?

Such a variety of forms of error set themselves up, all claiming the honour of being the Truth, that not a few persons get painfully perplexed, unable to discern the difference between them, or to determine which is right. Anything that would help to distinguish between the two, to ascertain where Truth ends and error begins, and that would supply sure rules for finding Truth, they will welcome, provided they are persons of a candid, ingenuous, and honest minded disposition; and for such only it is we write.

There are two main agents for ascertaining Truth. Whether doctrines are provable from Scripture, as true conclusions, is the work of the Intellect; whether they are true as principles of Life, is the work of the Heart. To the head they are proved by Reason; to the Heart by Love. But the latter, which is called "subjective" faith, must be supported by the former,

which is "objective" faith, or it has no pillars to rest upon, and may utterly fail and deceive. It may in this case be only the person's mistaken impressions, or fantastic ideas. On the other hand, it does not follow that, because a man has ascertained Truth objectively, he knows it subjectively. He will have the most certainty in whom the two kinds of proof meet, and are combined.

It is no part of our design to prove the truth of Christianity: that we have assumed. But as our pages may come under the eye of sceptics, we will ask attention here to a few general considerations, apart from all direct evidence, which seem to us to supply good grounds for believing not only that Christianity may be, but that it is true, and the one only true Religion. Let any man of candour say whether the following are not just conclusions:

(1) There certainly never would have been so many false Religions in the world if there had not been one true one; just as there never would have been counterfeit coin among men had there never been genuine; and this being granted, can any man of sense doubt that Christianity is that true one?

(2) Christianity professes to be grounded on man's redemption, and how can anyone account for creation except by redemption, or for redemption except by creation; the one accounts for the other, and neither can be accounted for without the other; for the very same principle in the Divine mind which led Him to create the world would, when it was lost by man's sin, lead Him to redeem it.

(3) The very obscurity that clouds some of the