ness in each man that his neighbor is his brother. In the teachings of Jesus this latter insight follows from the sense of common sonship that Jesus wants to give to men. But, apart from the theology, the belief in the brotherhood of men, in case it can be made clear and definite, may have just the relation to the idea of duty that Jesus, in his theological ethics, wished the idea of the common sonship to have.
But it is our present purpose to see how doubt follows the track of the moral idealists. And to carry out even here this purpose, it is very important to note that however much the morality of Jesus seems to rest upon his theology, and did, for him, rest upon that theology, for us that basis would be of itself insufficient, even if we could unhesitatingly accept the theology. For the skeptical question might arise in the inquiries of the philosopher, to whom all questions are allowed. Why is it evident that one ought to return the Father’s love? Granting the fact of this love, how does it establish the ideal? And this question, easy as seems the answer of it to a believer, is just the question that the “almost persuaded” of all times have been disposed to ask. Any particular individual may believe in the theology of Jesus, and yet fail to feel the force of the moral doctrine. Why does this love constrain me? he may say. In fact the church has always found it necessary to construct for itself a process, or even a series of processes, through which the unbeliever must go, in order to reach the point of development where he could begin to feel the constraining force of the divine love. It has been recognized as a fact
