"That is not very easy," said the priest; "but I will try." He sate for a moment silent, and then he said, "When one looks back into antiquity, before the coming of Christ, one sees a general searching after God in the world; the one idea that seems to run through all religions, is the idea of sacrifice--a coarse and brutal idea originally, perhaps; but the essence of it is that there is such a thing as sinfulness, and such a thing as atonement; and that only through death can life be reached. The Jews came nearest to the idea of a personal, ruling God: and the sacrificial system is seen in its fullest perfection with them. Then, in the wise counsels of God, it came about that our Saviour was born a Jew. You will say that I beg the question here; but approaching the subject intellectually, one satisfies oneself that the purest and completest religion that the world has ever seen was initiated by Him; it is impossible, in the light of that religion, not to feel that one must give the greatest weight to the credentials which such a teacher put forward; and we find that the claim that He made was that He was Himself Very God. The moment that one realises that, one also realises that there is no _prima facie_ impossibility that God should so reveal Himself--for indeed it seems an idea which no human mind would dare to originate, except in a kind of insane delusion; and the teaching of Christ, His utter modesty and meekness, His perfect sanity and clear-sightedness, make it evident to me that we may put out of court the possibility that He was under the influence of a delusion. He, it seems to me, took all the old vague ideas of sacrifice and consummated them; He showed that the true spirit was there, hidden under the ancient sacrifices; that one must offer one's best freely to God; and in this spirit He gave Himself to suffering and death. He founded a society with a definite constitution, He provided it with certain simple rules, and said that, when He was gone, it would be inspired and developed by the workings of His Spirit. He left this society as a witness in the world; it has developed in many ways, holding its own, gaining strength, winning adherents in a marvellous manner. And I look upon the Church as the witness to God in the world; I accept its developments as the developments of the Spirit. I see many things in it which I cannot comprehend; but then the whole world is full of mysteries--and the mysteries of the Church I accept in a tranquil faith. I have put it, I fear, very clumsily and awkwardly; but that is the outline of my belief--and it seems to me to interpret the world and its secrets, not perfectly indeed, but more perfectly than any other theory."