truth, and who would use their faculty of speech for no
other purpose than open communications of their real opinions to others,
are met by protests from various quarters. Such protests, so far as they
imply cowardice or dishonesty, must of course be disregarded, but it
would be most erroneous to confound all protests in the same summary
condemnation. Reverent and kindly minds shrink from giving an
unnecessary shock to the faith which comforts many sorely tried souls;
and even the most genuine lovers of truth may doubt whether the time has
come at which the decayed scaffolding can be swept away without injuring
the foundations of the edifice. Some reserve, they think, is necessary,
though reserve, as they must admit, passes but too easily into
insincerity.

And thus, it is often said by one class of thinkers, Why attack a system
of beliefs which is crumbling away quite fast enough without your help?
Why, says another class, try to shake beliefs which, whether true or
false, are infinitely consoling to the weaker brethren? I will endeavor
to conclude these essays, in which I have possibly made myself liable to
some such remonstrances, by explaining why I should think it wrong to be
bound by them; I will, however, begin by admitting frankly that I
recognize their force so far as this; namely, that I have no desire to
attack wantonly any sincere beliefs in minds unprepared for the
reception of more complete truths. This book, perhaps, would be
unjustifiable if it were likely to become a text-book for school-girls
in remote country parsonages. But it is not very probable that it will
penetrate to such quarters; nor do I flatter myself that I have brought
forward a single argument which is not already familiar to educated men.
Whatever force there may be in its pages is only the force of an appeal
to people who already agree in my conclusions to state their agreement
in plain terms; and, having said this much, I will answer the questions
suggested as distinctly as I am able.

To the first question, why trouble the last moments of a dying creed, my
reply would be in brief that I do not desire to quench the lingering
vitality of the dying so much as to lay the phantoms of the dead. I
believe that one of the greatest dangers of the present day is the
general atmosphere of insincerity in such matters, which is fast
producing a scepticism not as to any or all theologies, but as to the
very existence of intellectual good faith.