238 HORACE BUSHNELL

" I never saw so distinctly as now what it is to
be a disciple, or what the keynote is of all most
Christly experience. I think, too, that I have
made my last discovery in this mine. First, I
was led along into initial experience of Grod,
socially and by force of the blind religional instinct
in my nature ; second, I was advanced into the
clear moral light of Christ and of Grod, as related
to the principle of rectitude ; next, or third, I was
set on by the inward personal discovery of Christ,
and of God as represented in him ; now, fourth, I
lay hold of and appropriate the general culminating
fact of God's vicarious character in goodness, and
of mine to be accomplished in Christ as a follower."

The stages to which he refers are, first, his early
conversion in youthhood ; second, his experience
while a tutor, described in a sermon on "The
Dissolving of Doubts ; " third, that revelation of
the meaning of the gospel which led to his writing
" God in Christ ; " fourth, the conceptions of sacri-
fice and forgiveness which were to ripen into the
present volume. There seems to be an evolution
almost scientific in the order and accuracy with
which one thing led to another, but it was evolu-
tion under an environment as well as through an
inner force. In one sense there was not this or-
derly advance from one subject to another : all were
thrust upon him at the very outset. But he had
a habit of " hanging up a subject ; " "I let time
chew my questions for me." StiU, the environment
pressed upon him, and at last drove him to utter-



"THE VICABIOUS SACRIFICE" 239

ance. He found himself face to face with doctrines
which he could accept only under wide qualifica-
tions, and a prevailing habit of thought with which
he had little sympathy. If he is regarded as a de-
velopment, we can see that the time had come when
it was possible for him to do his work, even in the
very order in which it has been named. At the
beginning of his ministry he woidd have found
no audience and no toleration. 