Page:Literature and Dogma (1883).djvu/15

 course, of individuals) to feel compelled to deal sincerely with themselves about it. The heretical Germanic nations, who renounced clericalism and tradition, proved their attachment to Christianity by so doing, and preserved for it that serious hold upon men's minds which is a great and beneficent force to-day, and the force to which Literature and Dogma makes appeal. Miracles have to go the same way as clericalism and tradition; and the important thing is, not that the world should be acute enough to see this (there needs, indeed, no remarkable acuteness to see it), but that a great and progressive part of the world should be capable of seeing this and of yet holding fast to Christianity.

To assist those called to such an endeavour, is the object, I repeat, of Literature and Dogma. It is not an attack upon miracles and the supernatural. It unreservedly admits, indeed, that the belief in them has given way and cannot be restored, it recommends entire lucidity of mind on this subject, it points out certain characters of weakness in the sanction drawn from miracles, even while the belief in them lasted. Its real concern, however, is not with miracles, but with the natural truth of Christianity. It is after this that, among the more serious races of the world, the hearts of men are really feeling; and what really furthers them is to establish it. At present, reformers in religion are far too negative, spending their labour, some of them, in inveighing against false beliefs which are doomed, others, in contending about matters of discipline and ritual which are indifferent. Popular Christianity derived its power from the characters of certainty and of grandeur which it wore; these