Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/56

 I ask bluntly and straightly, "What is it all about? "

It is an honest question, and demands an honest answer. Put it to yourselves plainly.

Again—put it with equal plainness—

Let us, my reader or readers, be round and frank with each other. If you are a Christian, your religion is to believe that Christ was a human Incarnation or Manifestation of an Eternal God, born miraculously of the Virgin Mary; that He was crucified in the flesh as a criminal, died, was buried, rose again from the dead, and ascended to heaven as God and Man in one, and there perpetually acts as Mediator between mankind and Divine Justice. Remember, that if you believe this, you believe in the. But let any one talk or write of the purely supernatural as existent in any other form save this one of the Christian Faith, and you will probably be the first to scout the idea of the supernatural altogether. Why? Where is your consistency? If you believe in one thing which is supernatural, why not in others?

Now let us consider the other side of the question. You who do not believe, but still pretend to do so, for the sake of form and conventional custom, do you realize what you are? You consider yourself virtuous and respectable, no doubt; but facts are facts, and you, in your pretence at faith, are