Now we have reached the last point to which I have desired to bring you in this series of sermons. We have reached the historical fact, as to which others will follow me who will take up the subject, and who will show the evidence arising from history and prophecy. My task ends in removing the stumbling-blocks which would prevent your coming to hear them. It has been my part to lead you to the steps, to the threshold of the temple. We have found difficulties that have kept many away from the entrance to the temple. The first is the belief that Christianity is opposed to Freethought. And I have endeavoured to show you that Christianity does not deny it, but asserts it; that where Christianity does deny it, law and society deny it. The second difficulty is that of scepticism. We have seen that it is fatal to morality, and to all the higher forms of human life, and that the sceptical understanding should submit to the soul. Christianity only requires what morality has done. I have answered the objection that Christianity must appeal to faith, and must do so because it cannot find demonstration. Our answer is that it has all the demonstration that is possible for the supernatural or for history. Christianity does make demands on faith, but it acts in accordance with the analogy of human life; and Christianity in claiming faith justifies its claim to be a religion. Now the time comes to close this discourse, in which from my inmost soul I have set the truth before you. I will ask you in all sincerity, Why do you suppose I am here? Some may say because we are priests and bigots. To me, if I must put it so, it makes no difference whether I come here or not. Why do I come here? Do you really, honestly believe, that I have come here to deceive you? Will you not give me credit, that to the best of my ability and in all earnestness and honesty, I have endeavoured to put before you the reasons that seem to me sufficient for my belief? Hear us, then, for this reason if for no other, that we desire your souls for our Lord and Master, that it is in his name we come among you, and because we believe that Jesus is the Son of God and came down from heaven to save men. It is for this reason, and this only, that we are here to speak to you, that we may with the help of God deepen your faith or shake your unbelief. We come with his word, that calls on you to follow the higher and not the lower part of your nature. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and ye shall be saved.” There are some who don’t believe in the first part of this message, there are few who do not believe that men need to be saved, saved in this world, and saved in the next, saved from some of the sin and misery in this world. I ask, is there no need of faith, is there no desire for the objects of