Last William Belden Noble Lecture.

The Right Reverend William Boyd Carpenter, D.D., Bishop of Ripon, gave the last of the William Belden Noble lectures on "The Witness to the Influence of Christ," last night before an audience which completely filled Sanders Theatre.

The question in closing, Bishop Carpenter said, is whether we can reach an assurance of faith which fills the needs of our character and our conduct. The desire for firm certitude is not always a wholesome one. If it is the outcome of love of truth it is good, but if it comes from a desire to shirk responsibility it is most ignoble. Men who want every question answered, every doubt cleared, lack the heroism God intended to be in life. In Christ's own time, there were men of this same temperament. He was questioned concerning authority. What was His attitude? The Temptation furnishes one answer. Christ would not avail himself of superhuman or supernatural power to attract attention. He used only legitimate and lawful modes of appeal. If He had come as a power and as a ruler many would have come to Him and trusted Him merely from hopes of gain. Christ did not want to win the ascendency or approval of men in this way. The whole principle underlying His action lay in the consciousness of the men appealed to.

Christ is a historical fact, an ethical fact, and a spiritual fact in the soul of man. Christ must be within to be realized, must be external to be real. Moral power presupposes Christ within attesting Christ without.

Men who do not hold the complete Christian view yet believe Christ the greatest moral example. But behind all morality is love and God is love. Some religious thinkers have forgotten ethics. For them, religion is but a ceremony. Religion and ethics are inseparable.