For myself, arrived at the term of a long life, one of labour, of reflection, and of trials,--of trials in thought as well as in action,--I am convinced that, the Christian dogmas are the legitimate and satisfactory solutions of those religious problems which, as I have said, nature suggests and man carries in his own breast, and from which he cannot escape. {15} I beg, at the outset, Theologians, whether Catholic or Protestant, to pardon me. I have no design to cite or to explain, or to maintain, all the various doctrinal points, all the articles of faith, which have been included in the term of Christian dogmas. During eighteen centuries, Christian theology has very often ventured to advance out of and beyond the limits of the Christian religion: man has confounded his own labours with the work of God. It is the natural consequence of the union of human activity and human imperfection. This same result may be traced throughout the history of the world, especially in the history of the society and religion upon which God has grafted the Christian religion. At the time when God raised up Jesus Christ among the Jews, the faith and the law of the Jews were no longer solely and purely the faith and law which God had given to them by Moses: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and many others, had essentially modified, enlarged, and altered both. Christianity too has had its Pharisees and its Sadducees; in its turn it has been made to feel the workings of human thought and the influence of human passions on its Divine revelation. {16} I cannot recognize, in all the uncertain fruits of these labours, the claim to the title of Christian dogmas. Nevertheless I have no intention here to specify particularly and to combat such tenets in the Church and in Christian theology, as I can neither accept nor defend. It is not for me--and I venture to say, it is not for any Christian--to scan critically the interior of the Edifice, at a moment when its foundations are ardently attacked. Far rather I prefer to rally in a common defence all who abide within its walls. I shall here allude only to the dogmas common to them all, which I sum up in these terms:--The Creation, Providence, Original Sin, the Incarnation, and the Redemption. These constitute the essence of the Christian religion, and all who believe in these dogmas I hold to be Christians.