can be explained only on the hypothesis of a divine revelation having been made. Yet the nineteenth-century rationalist will deny the Bible to be the word of God; will deny that tradition holds revealed truth; will stand up before all the sublime geniuses that from the beginning have bowed their reason before revelation and tell them they were either fools or hypocrites! That is rationalism. Is it rational — is it reasonable?
But not only was the revelation of these truths possible; it was necessary also. For the truths of which we speak are vital truths, appertaining to the dearest interests of mankind — so that, ignorant of them, man could never hope to properly know, love and serve God here or be happy with Him hereafter. For these truths concern the existence and the natures of God and of man, their respective rights and obligations — God's dominion over man and man's duties to God, his neighbor, and himself. Now, many of these truths are entirely above and beyond reason, because they are entirely above and beyond Nature, to the study of which reason is confined. For how could reason find out that God is a spirit to be adored in spirit and in truth? How prove He is, at once, one and three? That the temporal Christ was the eternal God — that mortal man has an immortal soul — that bread, seemingly, is the living body of Christ — that an external sign is the source of inward grace? And yet rationalism holds that reason, though blind to all these necessary truths, is still self-sufficient. Is it rational — is it reasonable?
