I shall not give now the reasons which have led me, and not in haste, to
this melancholy conclusion. I shall only say that I have come to it,
with pain, and shame, and fear. With shame and fear. For when I ask you
the solemn question, Would you know Christ if He came among you? do I not
ask myself a question which I dare not answer? How can I tell whether I
should recognise, after all, my Saviour and my Lord? How do I know that
if He said (as He but too certainly might), something which clashed
seriously with my preconceived notions of what He ought to say, I should
not be offended, and walk no more with Him? How do I know that if He
said, as in Judea of old, "Will ye too go away?" I should answer with St
Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life,
and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God?" I dare not ask that question of myself. How then dare I
ask it of you? I know not. I can only say, "Lord, I believe: help thou
mine unbelief." I know not. But this I know--that in this or any other
world, if you or I did recognise Him, it would be with utter shame and
terror, unless we had studied and had striven to copy either Himself, or
whatsoever seems to us most like Him. Yes; to study the good, the
beautiful, and the true in Him, and wheresoever else we find it--for all
that is good, beautiful, and true throughout the universe are nought but
rays from Him, the central sun--to obey St. Paul of old, and "whatsoever
things are true, venerable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report--if
there be any virtue and if there be any praise, to think on these
things,"--on these scattered fragmentary sacraments of Him whose number
is not two, nor seven, "but seventy-times seven;" that is the way--I
think, the only way--to be ready to recognise our Saviour, and to prepare
to meet our God; that He may be to us, too, as a refiner's fire, and
refine us--our thoughts, our deeds, our characters throughout.

And I think, too, that this is the way, perhaps the only way, to rid