Before going further, however, let us call to mind two things. Let us
remember first, that if we expect to find a revelation at all, it is
morally certain that it must be a revelation already in existence. It is
hardly possible, if we consider that all the supernatural claims that
have been made hitherto are false, to expect that a new manifestation,
altogether different in kind, is in store for the world in the future.
Secondly, our enquiries being thus confined to religions that are
already in existence, what we are practically concerned with is the
truth of Christianity only. It is true that we have heard, on all sides,
of the superiority of other religions to the Christian. But the men who
hold such language, though they may affect to think that such religions
are superior in certain moral points, yet never dream of claiming for
them the miraculous and supernatural authority that they deny to
Christianity. No man denies that Christ was born of a virgin, in order
to make the same claim for Buddha: or denies the Christian Trinity in
order to affirm the Brahminic. There is but one alleged revelation that,
_as a revelation_, the progressive nations of the world are concerned
with, or whose supernatural claims are still worthy of being examined by
us: and that religion is the Christian. These claims, it is true, are
being fast discredited; but still, as yet they have not been silenced
wholly; and what I propose to ask now is, what chance is there of their
power again reviving.