Let us pass on, and consider for a moment the Apostles' Creed, so
called. There was a time in the Church when people really supposed that
the apostles were its author. There are persons to-day who have not
discovered the contrary. I crossed the ocean a few years ago when on
board were a bishop of one of the Western States and a young candidate
for orders who was travelling with him as his pupil. I fell into
conversation with this young man, and found that he really believed
that the twelve clauses of the Apostles' Creed were manufactured by the
apostles themselves. He had never discovered anything to the contrary.
A still more astonishing fact came to my knowledge last year. During
that discussion over Ian McLaren's creed, in which so many people were
interested last winter, Chancellor McCracken, of the University of New
York, published a letter, in which he referred to the Apostles' Creed
as written eighteen hundred years ago. It took my breath away when I
read it. I wondered, Could the chancellor of a great University
possibly be ignorant of the facts? Would he state that which he knew
was not true? I could not explain it either way. I was compelled to
think, if he was thoughtless and careless about it, that he had no
business to be about a matter of such importance. But he said the
Apostles' Creed was written eighteen hundred years ago.
Now what are the facts? The apostles had nothing whatever to do with
the creed, as everybody knows to-day who chooses to look into the
matter.
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