Best Evidence of Christianity.
THE best evidence of Christianity is the personal test of experience, and the contact of Christ and his word. "Come and see," was Christ's answer to the honest inquirer, and as they came and saw where he dwelt, they were able to go back and say, "We have found the Messiah, the Christ." This brings not conviction only, but conversion. Two typical cases recently occurred under the direct observation of the writer: An intelligent lawyer called one evening for the purpose of investigating the claims of Christianity as he would a case before a jury. He said he was not a believer but was unprejudiced and willing to be convinced. He felt that the Christian religion ought to be as susceptible of proof as a case of human evidence. He was frankly met, and at once referred to the fact of Christ's resurrection as the Scriptural foundation of the Christian faith. With keen severity he cross-examined every point in the evidence of that event, and after a conversation extending over two hours, he withdrew, having noted down every legal point in the case, taking with him as a fuller guide to the details of the argument the chapter on the subject in "Bushnell's Nature and the Supernatural," and promising to return when he had made up his mind, and report the result. In two weeks he returned, and with great seriousness and frankness said, "I have examined this case as I would any case of evidence, and I am satisfied beyond all doubt that Christianity is true; and the evidence is stronger by far than that on which innumerable lives have been condemned to death in courts of law"; "but," he added, "I wish you to understand distinctly that while I am now a believer in Christianity, I am not any more a Christian than before, nor am I even an inquirer." Alas! he discovered that his unbelief was not so much in his head as in his heart, and that his real alienation from God was not to be removed by rational evidence or intellectual convictions. Often in after years was the tender and solemn appeal made and renewed, pressing him to take to his heart the Saviour he had admitted to his logic, but the result was always the same. Here was the cold, clear light of conviction, but none of the warmth of trust and love. Shortly afterwards another case occurred, strangely different. Another lawyer, more bright and gifted than the first, sent for the writer, and, on meeting him, began at once to speak of his recent experience. "I have just got faith," he said, "and it has come to me so strangely that I want to tell you about it. For years I was a skeptic, reading everything on the subject of Christianity, and sometimes giving the weight of evidence to the one side, sometimes to the other, but never quite able to hold both in the firm grasp of my mind at once, and balance the evidence so as to form an abiding conclusion. And so I drifted between doubt and probability, like a helmless wreck in the tossing waves of uncertainty. At length I married a Christian wife. Every night she read with me her Bible and prayed, and I tacitly assented, more from love to her than any real interest. But all the while I saw in her something which I did not possess, and which was worth more than all my intellectual superiority. One short year we lived together, and then she died. More than ever, in these last sufferings, did I see the reality and value of her faith, and when I found myself alone—stunned with grief, and without one prop on earth to cling to—I found myself also, without even thinking why, instinctively crying out in my agony to her God for help and comfort. Instantly I felt the answer. Before I had time to reason whether I believed or not, my heart had cried in its orphanage, and had heard the answering heart of God. And that touch of love and comfort was so sweet and real that I just kept on praying, and the same answer has ever come, and I know it is God; so that now you see I have got faith, I hardly know how. But I know it is faith, and I know it is true, and that is enough for me." Yes, he had sought for God where alone God ever can meet man, "in spirit and in truth," in the simplicity of the heart, in the attitude not of the proud censor, but the helpless child and the penitent sinner. In both these cases the unbelief was not intellectual, but moral. In the one case conviction came, but without conversion; in the other, conversion brought conviction. When will men cease to strain their weary eyes toward a cold and lofty region where the Father is not found, and simply turn to the cradle of Bethlehem, the cross of Calvary, the footstool of simple, lovely penitence, to find Him who has Himself said: "I dwell with him that is humble, and of a contrite heart, and that trembleth at my word." Sir James Simpson has summed up a volume in one sentence of his spiritual biography, where he has said, substantially: "I sought for God in lofty reasonings and learned philosophy, but I never found him until I just came as a little bairn."—The Word, the Work, and the World.