The context reads: "Pilate saith unto Him, What is truth? And
when he had said this, he went out."-JOHN Xviii. 38.

PILATE
ATE was probably a thoughtful, well-edu-

cated man, and from this passage it would seem likely that he belonged to the class of thinkers called sometimes Agnostics, sometimes Pyrrhonists, and sometimes Sceptics, who hold that it is impossible for us ever to attain to any certain knowledge. Hence, when Christ began to speak to him about truth, he asked, with a sort of contemptuous smile, "What is truth?" and with a shrug of the shoulder turned on his heel. Let us ask this question to-day, but not with the same "genteel indifference," as Hegel calls it. Let us wait for a reply.

According to Horne Tooke, in the 'Diversions. of Purley,' the word truth is derived from to trow in the sense of believe. If so, truth would mean that which a man troweth or believeth. Now

this is precisely what truth does not mean. The best authorities nowadays will tell you that the Anglo-Saxon treowe is the same as the German trauen (to trust), and the Icelandic traust or the Sanscrit dhruna (which mean fixed or firm). This derivation suggests the proper signification of the word truth. While belief or opinion is constantly changing, truth is that which does not change. While belief may be false, truth cannot but be true. If truth were synonymous with opinion, it would follow that, supposing you thought two and two made four, and I thought they made five, our opinions would both equally deserve to be called truth. This view has been held, as for example, by the Sophists and by Grote; but I

shall assume in the present sermon the view, which probably you all hold, that there is such a thing as absolute truth, regarding which it is possible to obtain certain knowledge. In other words, truth, I take it, is something which is the same for all, whatever may be their opinions or absence of opinions,-something which should be believed in because it can be proved, not something which should be considered proved because it is believed in. Truth will thus correspond pretty much with the word fact, which word includes everything that exists and everything

that happens. Facts do not vary with our everchanging opinions and beliefs; for a thing must be what it is whether we believe it or not. If a man takes poison he will be poisoned, however loudly he may vociferate that he believed it to be medicine. Fact is firm, fixed, steadfast, reliable, remaining always the same, however much opinions may change in regard to it. We are therefore at liberty to say, and this will simplify our subject, that truth is equivalent to truths, and that truths are synonymous with facts. All facts are parts of that vast whole which is summed up in the word Truth.

Broadly speaking, we may distinguish three spheres of truth. There is (1) the truth involved in and revealed by nature; (2) that involved in and revealed by our own mental constitution; (3) that involved in and revealed by Christ; which may be called respectively physical, metaphysical, and Christian truth.

First, as to physical truth. The Duke of Argyll has well said, "Indifference to truth in apparently the most distant spheres of thought relaxes the most powerful springs of action." He is right. The connection, for example, between hygiene, or the laws of health, and your religious welfare, is closer, perhaps, than you

imagine. The more extensive is your knowledge of those laws, the better it will be for you spiritually as well as temporally. If you eat too much or too little, if you sleep too long or too short a time, if you work too hard or not hard enough, if you indulge in recreations too often or too seldom, if you in any way violate the laws of your own nature-laws which can be fully understood only after careful investigation and study -not only will your life be shortened, but your character will be deteriorated. It is of little avail for the spirit to be willing when the flesh is weak. Discontentment, despondency, despair, and suicide sometimes result from a dyspepsia which is due to ignorance or carelessness.

But the laws of the human body are of course only a very small portion of physical truth, indifference to any part of which is the sign of a moral languor incompatible with real greatness or goodness. Yet how common such indifference is! As Faraday says, "We come into this world, we live and depart from it, without ever thinking how it all takes place; and were it not for the exertion of a few inquiring minds, who have ascertained the beautiful laws and conditions by which we do live, we should hardly be aware that there is anything wonderful in it."

Not only are the facts of nature interesting for their own sake, but every one of them is, as Carlyle puts it, "a window through which we can look into infinity." How constantly Christ discovered spiritual meaning in natural objects. and events! To the far-seeing man, indeed, the vision of nature is the vision of God.

Secondly, there is metaphysical truth. The facts and laws of the human mind are worthy of study, partly for their own sake, partly for the mental vigour and discipline to be gained in the process, but especially, I apprehend, because the mind of man is in some respects similar to the mind of God. Were it different in kind as well as in degree, knowledge of God, and still more communion with God, would be impossible. Such expressions as King, Judge, Sovereign, Father, when applied to God, mean nothing if they do not mean that there is a resemblance between the divine and human natures, as well as between divine and human relationships. Dean Mansel, I know, in his Bampton Lecture on the Limits of Religious Thought, maintains the opposite view. He says that we cannot argue from ourselves to God; that the words personality, justice, love, &c., when applied to God, are used in different senses from those in which