There is an old apothegm to the effect that every man can be reached if one but know enough to take the right road. That this road is the only right way of approach goes without saying, and to discern and follow it evidences that wisdom in dealing with men without which one is sure to blunder to a degree that hazards success in his efforts to help them. No one is called to exercise this wisdom more certainly or more constantly than the exponent of Christian Science who is seeking to awaken responsiveness to its healing truth in what might be called unbelieving intelligence.
It is pitifully true that so-called Christian civilization has developed very many representations of a class who might be fittingly though paradoxically named "truth-seeking agnostics." Further, not infrequently it is found that the parents of these "unbelievers" were earnest Christian people who were so anxious that their children should think and do just what they themselves had always thought to be Christianly true and right, so insistent that they "go to church and be good," that is, unquestioningly accept and conform to orthodox belief and its requirements, that a rebellious reaction was brought about from which they have never recovered. Usually such men deeply respect the honesty and sincerity of their forbears and ofttimes they will express regret that they are less earnest and devout than were they, but they freely criticize their coercive methods and affirm that they have no use whatever for their religious beliefs. Such men may give convincing evidence of regard for every Christian virtue, a love for all that is true and beautiful and good. They will aver that they are truth-seekers and even say. "I wish I had your faith; " nevertheless they may call even the asserted existence of the Christian's God "an unwarranted assumption" and balk at any and every statement which one grounds thereon! They are good men and have not separated themselves from participation in that eternal quest which in all time has characterized every noble and aspiring nature, but they have fallen into the mental habit of unbelief, and how to reach them has become a problem which we are not likely to solve if we are unthoughtful or untactful and so, unwise.
Jesus said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me," and it is safe to say that the impressiveness and winsomeness of his words and works would be seen in the instance of every critic of churches and churchmen were these last but lifting up the Christ-idea in a life which is free from superstition, inconsistency, and ill-logic. The Ingersols and the Bradlaughs have not reviled the Master or his teaching, but they have discerned the hypocrisy, cant, and general unworthiness of many professed Christians, the fallacy and untenability of much of their dogma, and in so far their criticism, as we are compelled to concede, has been quite as legitimate and withal serviceable as it has been severe.
