be
mistaken in blaming him;--these are the real foes which I have to
fight, and the auxiliaries to whom my accuser makes his court.

Well, I must break through this barrier of prejudice against me, if I
can; and I think I shall be able to do so. When first I read the
pamphlet of Accusation, I almost despaired of meeting effectively
such a heap of misrepresentation and such a vehemence of animosity.
What was the good of answering first one point, and then another, and
going through the whole circle of its abuse; when my answer to the
first point would be forgotten, as soon as I got to the second? What
was the use of bringing out half a hundred separate principles or
views for the refutation of the separate counts in the indictment,
when rejoinders of this sort would but confuse and torment the
reader by their number and their diversity? What hope was there of
condensing into a pamphlet of a readable length, matter which ought
freely to expand itself into half a dozen volumes? What means was
there, except the expenditure of interminable pages, to set right
even one of that series of "single passing hints," to use my
assailant's own language, which, "as with his finger tip, he had
delivered" against me?

All those separate charges of his had their force in being
illustrations of one and the same great imputation. He had a positive
idea to illuminate his whole matter, and to stamp it with a form, and
to quicken it with an interpretation. He called me a _liar_--a
simple, a broad, an intelligible, to the English public a plausible
arraignment; but for me, to answer in detail charge one by reason
one, and charge two by reason two, and charge three by reason three,
and so to proceed through the whole string both of accusations and
replies, each of which was to be independent of the rest, this would
be certainly labour lost as regards any effective result. What I
needed was a corresponding antagonist unity in my defence, and where
was that to be found? We see, in the case of commentators on the
prophecies of Scripture, an exemplification of the principle on
which I am insisting; viz. how much more powerful even a false
interpretation of the sacred text is than none at all;--how a certain
key to the visions of the Apocalypse, for instance, may cling to the
mind--(I have found it so in my own case)--mainly because they are
positive and objective, in spite of the fullest demonstration that
they really have no claim upon our beli