And if he desires to avoid the parrot creed, he must surely inform himself regarding the meaning of its articles and the grounds on which they are held.  More; he must satisfy himself of the particular meaning that they have for him and the personal grounds on which he is to hold them.  This is the reason why such a course as that which you complete to-night is necessary and valuable.  I have heard instruction of this kind deprecated as likely to bring disturbing elements into the mind.  One may doubtless change from belief to skepticism by too much searching.  It used to be a standing joke in Yale College, when I was a student there, that a well-known professor reputed to be an Atheist, had been perfectly orthodox until he had heard President Porter’s lectures on the “Evidences of Christianity.”  But seriously, this objection is but another phase of the fallacy at which we have already glanced—­that doubts are fatal to belief.  I am certain that the professor in question might have examined in detail every one of President Porter’s “Evidences,” and found them wanting, only to discover clearer and stronger grounds of belief elsewhere—­in his mere confidence in others, perhaps.  Or he might have turned pragmatist and believed in Christianity because it “worked”—­a valid reason in this case doubtless, but not always to be depended on; because the Father of Lies sometimes makes things “work” himself—­at least temporarily.

But if examining into the grounds of his belief makes a man honestly give up that belief, then I bid him God-speed.  I may weep for him, but I cannot help believing that he stands better with his Maker for being honest with himself than if he had gone on with his parrot belief that meant absolutely nothing.  I can not feel that the Aztecs who were baptized by the followers of Cortes were any more believers in Christianity after the ceremony than they were before.  It seems to me, however that a Christian, examining faithfully the grounds of his belief, will usually have that belief strengthened, and that a churchman, examining the doctrines of the church will be similarly upheld.

Not that church instruction should be one-sided.  The teaching that tends to make us believe that every intelligent man thinks as we do reacts against itself.  It is like the unfortunate temperance teaching that represents the liking for wine as always acquired.  When the pupil comes to taste wine and finds that he likes it at once, he concludes that the whole body of instruction in the physiology of alcohol is false and acts accordingly.  When a boy is taught that there is nothing of value beyond his own church, or nothing of value outside of Christianity, he will think less of his church, and less of Christianity when he finds intelligent, upright, lovable outsiders.  I look back with horror on some of the books, piously prepared under the auspices of the S.P.C.K. in London, that I used to take home from Sunday School.  In them we were told that a good man outside the church