When
religious teachers act so unfaithfully, they have no right to complain
if people lose all confidence in their honesty.
We grant, however, that the temptation to keep back the truth on this
point is very strong, and we must not be hard on the timid ones. It is
not always a fear of personal loss or suffering that keeps men from
speaking freely on religious subjects, but a dread of lessening their
usefulness, of hurting the minds of good though mistaken people, or of
disturbing and injuring the Church.
But it is no use trying to cheat unbelievers. You cannot do it. They
will find you out, and be all the more suspicious and skeptical in
consequence. We must deal with them honestly; tell them nothing but what
is true, and use no arguments but what are sound and unanswerable.
Advocates of Christianity have made numberless unbelievers by teaching
erroneous doctrines, and by using weak and vicious arguments. The
Christian should so speak and act, that it shall be impossible for any
one ever to find him in the wrong.
The following is probably our own.
The historical difficulties of the Bible amount to little. They do not
affect its scope and tendency, as a moral and spiritual teacher. Nor are
they inconsistent with the doctrine that the Scriptures were given by
inspiration of God, as that doctrine is presented in the Scriptures
themselves.
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