Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/240

222 Later Theology of God. Consequently when a great doctrine came before him which had the ages of experience behind it or upon it, the question he asked was not " Is it true ? " but " Why is it true ? ' ' or "Wherein resides its truth?" So it was with the great pivotal doctrine of the divinity of Christ, or, as he preferred to call it, the Incarnation. He found its truth to reside in the fact that Christ had lived out the secret yearnings and possi- bilities of humanity; Christ was the prophecy of the Christ that was everywhere to be. On the great question of the miracles he was orthodox. He lived in a time when Biblical criticism in this country was in its earlier stages. He could honestly write to a German inquirer: "There is nothing in the results of modern scholarship which conflicts with the statements in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds concern- ing the birth of Jesus." As Allen remarks, Brooks was in the habit of "sheathing his critical faculties where the people's faith was concerned." He used the Bible, therefore, pretty much as he found it, or rather he used what he found beneath it. It was toward middle life, about the time that a fresh study of the Gospels found expression in the Influence of Jesus (1880), that his emphasis seemed to shift from historic Chris- tianity to the personal Christ. Over and over he insisted on the centrality of Christ. " Not Christianity but Christ ! Not a doctrine but a person! Christianity only for Christ! . . . Our religion is — Christ. To believe in Him is what? To say a Creed? To join a church? No, but to have a great, strong, divine Master, whom we perfectly love." And how perfectly he loved him and how Christ responded to the em- braces of this man's love, a letter on the eve of his consecration to the bishopric shows : These last years have a peace and fulness which there did not use to be. I do not think it is the mere quietness of advancing age. I am sure it is not indifference to anything which I used to care for. I am sure that it is a deeper knowledge and truer love of Christ. ... I cannot tell you how personal this grows to me. He is here. He knows me and I know Him. It is no figure of speech. It is the reallest thing in the world. And every day makes it realler. And one wonders with delight what it will grow to as the years go on.