But does this inconsistency as a matter of fact exist? We do not think it does. The statements in the New Testament scriptures regarding God are necessarily mysterious, but mystery can be no test of their truth or falsehood, inasmuch as it must in such regions be the almost inevitable accompaniment of truth. The question is not whether they are mysterious, but whether they are consistent with themselves, and with the knowledge we derive from other sources. We therefore devote considerable portions of this volume to a proof that the conception of God which the majority of Christians derive from the New Testament is in no way inconsistent with that deduced from scientific principles. Meanwhile, and in conclusion, we must be allowed to express our conviction that much evil has been wrought by a certain class of sincere and well-meaning men in the various churches of Christ. By dint of contemplating lofty truths from one point of view, and only one, and by dint of developing excessively, and in one direction only, those analogies by which the mysterious has been rendered thinkable, they have produced a result for which they themselves are mainly to blame. With a strange reversal of the process by which Satan transforms himself into an Angel of Light, we have the noble, the beautiful, and the true presented to us by these men in a form which is fit only to inspire aversion or to create disgust. It is in such terms that we reply to those of our critics, on the one hand, who attack us for adopting what they call a narrow and gloomy theology; and to those, on the other hand, who regard as dangerous the method of discussion we have pursued. We have tried honestly to view things with two eyes,—the eye of knowledge and the eye of faith: first with one, then with the other, finally with both. To what extent we have succeeded is, after all, a matter of minor importance if only the lawfulness of this mode of vision be ultimately allowed. And just as we have a better appretiation of the form and distance of natural objects when we view them with both our physical eyes, so, we venture to think, must it prove with the truths of which we now speak. * * * * * We have explained that the first part of our argument is altogether independent of revelation; proceeding as it does solely upon scientific data, and the conclusions which these seem to render inevitable. In the second part, however, we feel that we ought not to deprive ourselves of the overwhelming additional evidence which we derive from Christian records. Here, therefore, we shall neither gratify one class of our critics by starting from a point which ignores what we regard as the fully warranted belief of the great majority of Christians, nor shall we be overruled by the excessive timidity of another class who apparently regard a two-eyed man as a monster in those regions where truths of really vital importance are concerned. * * * * *