+Atonement and New Testament language.+--It will have been observed that in my examination of the subject of the Atonement I have said almost nothing about the New Testament evidence for the doctrine. This, I admit, is an entire departure from the method usually followed by those who write upon it, and may be thought by some to vitiate my whole argument. But the omission is of set purpose, for I am convinced that New Testament language about the Atonement, especially the language of St. Paul, has been, and still is, the prolific source of most of the mischievous misinterpretations of it which exist in the religious mind. To an extent this is the same with the Old Testament, but to a far less degree, for the language of the Old Testament is only liable to misapprehension when interpreted by the New. In a previous chapter I have endeavoured to show the imperishable truths which underlie Old Testament symbolism in regard to the Atonement, and I trust I have shown that these truths are as fresh and indispensable to-day, and play as great a part in human affairs as they ever did. But before I proceed to say anything about the New Testament symbolism, which has been largely derived from the Old, let us consider the question of the authority of scripture as a whole. +Tendency to bow to external authority.+--There is always a tendency in the ordinary mind to rely upon some form of external authority in religious as in other matters. With one man it is the authority of an infallible church; with another the authority of an infallible book; with another the authority of some infallible statement of belief which ought to hold good for all time, but never does. At the best, external authority is only a crutch, and at the worst it may become a rigid fetter upon the expanding soul. The true seat of authority is within, not without, the human soul. We are so constituted as to be able to recognise, little by little, the truth of God as it comes to us. It may come from any one of a thousand different quarters, but to be recognised and felt as truth it must awaken an echo within the individual soul. If it does not awaken such a response, it is of no effect so far as the growth of the soul is concerned. What is true in this book will not be received as true by the readers merely because I say it, but because they feel it to be true and cannot get away from it. Why should we be afraid of trusting the human soul to recognise and respond to its own truth? All truth is one, and all earnest truth-seekers are converging upon one goal. It is the divine self within everyone of us which enables us to discern the truth best fitted to our needs, and this divine self is, as has already been pointed out, fundamentally one with the source of all truth, which is God.