Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/22

 sentiment over which charity has not presided and urged us to "speak the truth in love."

Let no one then be deterred from trying the experiment of a careful perusal of this work because he sees at the beginning that the argument is intended to lead him away from opinions he has cherished. It is not impossible that those opinions may have been formed by the mere conventionalities of the Church, and without any fair examination. They may have been taken upon trust from others, and thus have no reasonable ground in self-knowledge and perception. It frequently happens, at least among the multitude, that opinions are adopted, not because they have been investigated, but because some supposed authority has taught them. In such cases, how plain is it that the belief is not in the thing but in the authority; it is not their own faith, but another's in them. This can by no means be satisfactory to the thoughtful, and when attention is directed to the circumstance, they will, if they are also seriously disposed, see the importance of a personal inquiry into the grounds and evidences of that which they professedly believe. Without an inquiry of this sort they cannot know, from any intellectual conviction of their own, that what they have accepted is really true. They may persuade themselves that it is so because others have asserted it, and because the majority have adopted it; but it cannot be to them any matter of rational certainty. In such a case, there is not only the danger of accepting error for truth, but the certainty of possessing a persuasive faith, and mistaking the subjects of it for a reality. That only is our own which we have made so by earnest and rational thought; all that we possess in any other way is a mere persuasion floating in the memory, about which the understanding is not informed, and from which the heart can