But I cannot help thinking that, on the theory of Wernle and his friends, the surplusage is too great, the dead self too large. The course of history, as this theory would describe it, seems to me contrary to the analogy of what we otherwise know of the dealings of God with man. If we look, for instance, at the Old Testament, we see a gradual preparation for the coming of Christ, a gradual elevation and expansion of religious ideas, on the whole a nearer approximation to truth. All of us, critics and non-critics, would give substantially the same account of this; we should all of us at least see in it progress. But when we come to Christianity, Wernle and his friends see in it a far larger proportion of what is not progress but depravation and corruption, not the gradual expansion and purification of true ideas, but the wider dissemination of ideas that are false. There are nearly fourteen centuries of the dissemination of these false ideas; then comes a sudden spasmodic effort of partial relief; and at last, in the latter half of the nineteenth and in the twentieth centuries, there is some sort of approach to a rediscovery of truth. It seems to me difficult to describe this view of history as anything else than a systematic impeachment of Divine Providence. I do not wish to press the point. As I have said, we have left behind the region of criticism, and entered upon another that is not only very wide but that some of you may think rather outside my subject. The Christian, it seems to me, ought to have a comprehensive view of the purpose of God in history; he ought to be able to adjust this to his fundamental beliefs. And I would only ask you to consider how far this can be done on the theory I have been discussing. Footnote 64: A few sentences here are repeated from my article in Hastings, _D. B._ iv. 575. Footnote 65: _Atonement and Personality_, p. 194. Compare the important and detailed exposition, pp. 154-9, 168 f., 180-2. Footnote 66: I do not doubt that the most active period for the putting together of material for Gospels was the decade 60-70 A.D. At the beginning of this period St. Mark had not yet taken up his task; and his Gospel forms the base of the other two Synoptics. The Matthaean _Logia_ perhaps by this time were collected. Footnote 67: I cannot regard this argument as at all invalidated by Dr. Drummond’s three sermons, _The Pauline Benediction_ (London, 1897). At the same time I can quite accept the view that the Apostle’s words are ‘the seed rather than the final expression of Christian theology.’ Footnote 68: