THE VENTURE

OF

RATIONAL FAITH

OF

RATIONAL FAITH

BY

MARGARET BENSON

BRARY

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

CALIFORNIA

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

PREFACE

FIFTEEN years ago I began to write a book of Christian apologetics, intending, with the sanguine impulse of my age, to meet and answer the historical, scientific, and philosophic difficulties in the way of belief. The first difficulty which met me was the necessity of knowing something about these subjects.

Thus life destroys many of our hopeful anticipations, but even in soberer middle age the germ of the intention is still alive, for Christianity makes no claim to be the religion of the expert only; it cannot be necessary, if Christianity is in any way what it professes to be, to wait until historical criticism has uttered its last word, or science tried its last experiment, before trusting to the truth of sayings whose authenticity is questioned, or to the power of a life whose uniqueness is challenged.

Yet merely to refer those who make such a

189199