Excerpt from Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion Christian Church, for well over the first three centuries of her existence, left all the killing to her persecutors and herself per sisted and prevailed not by killing but by dying. Nevertheless, we shall do well, I think, not to deny that even the persecutions tolerated or encouraged by later Church authorities, have con tributed, in certain times and places, to the real consolidation of Christendom. And especially we shall be wise if we do not insist upon any sense, innate in all human hearts, of the essential heinousness of all persecution. And in Paper No. 4 I have attempted to show how the reality of Evil is beyond any direct explanation by anyone - the true state of affairs here is not that believers can explain and that unbelievers cannot explain, still less that Christians cannot explain but that sceptics can. No but that Christianity does, if something other, yet something more than explain Evil. Christianity has immensely increased the range and depth of our insight as to Evil and, at the same time, Christianity alone has given man the motives and the power not only to trust on, unshaken, in the spiritual sun, in God, in spite of these sun spots of Evil, but to transform Evil into an instrument of Gmfi. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.