Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/79

Rh question is nothing less than this, whether we are to regard the grave with assured hope, and the ties between human beings as indissoluble by death; or, on the other hand, to dismiss the thought of a future life as too doubtful to be worth considering, even if not absolutely chimerical. No reasoning can make such a difference into a small one. But even where the differences are so great, it may still be worth while to call attention to the points of agreement. In our penury of truth we ought to make the very utmost of our agreements. Let us rescue whatever we can from the waves of doubt; sailors thrown shipwrecked on a desert island must save what they can, not what they would. If there is some truth, however small, upon which all can agree, then there is some action upon which all can unite; and who can tell how much may be done by any thing so rare as absolute unanimity? Moreover, if we look closely, we shall always find our agreement to be more than we had expected. It seems as if men valued difference of opinion for its own sake. We seem not to care for any doctrine that is not controvertible, We talk with contempt of platitudes and truisms. Platitudes and truisms do not work up into interesting books; but, if our object is to accomplish something for human life, we shall scarcely find any truth serviceable that has not been rubbed into a truism, and scarcely any maxim that has not been worn into a platitude. But men seldom apply to truths this test of practice; they try them by the other test, which is the test of talk and debate. Thus it happens that ten points of agreement seem less important in most assemblies than one point of difference. Why is it men do not discover by experience the waste that is caused by this method? Either they must have a great deal of time on their hands, or else they have most unreasonable expectations from controversy. But I return to my point.

We are all familiar with the language used by Christians in disparagement of learning. God, they say, has revealed to men all that is essential for them to know. By the side of revealed knowledge what the human intellect can discover for itself is of little importance. If it seem to clash with revelation, it is mischievous; if not, it may be useful in a subordinate degree. But at the best it is contemptible by the side of the "one thing needful;" and the greatest discoverer that ever lived is a trifler compared with the most simple-minded Christian who has studied to fulfill the requirements of the gospel.

There are indeed a true erudition and a true philosophy, the subject of which is God's revelation itself. Scholars, profoundly read in the sources of theology, whether they be supposed to be the Bible or the Fathers of the Church; philosophers who have made the Christian revelation their basis, or have collected and elucidated the evidence of it—these are truly wise, and escape the censure of frivolity under which secular learning lies; but even these, illustrious and venerable