with a manifesto put out by
certain other clergymen; the letter had a certain volubility about it,
and the writer seemed to me to pull out rather adroitly one or two
loose sticks in his opponents' bundle, and to lay them vehemently about
their backs. But, alas! the acrimony, the positiveness, the arrogance
of it!

I do not know that I admired the manifesto very much myself; it was a
timid and half-hearted document, but it was at least sympathetic and
tender. The purport of it was to say that, just as historical
criticism has shown that some of the Old Testament must be regarded as
fabulous, so we must be prepared for a possible loss of certitude in
some of the details of the New Testament. It is conceivable, for
instance, that without sacrificing the least portion of the essential
teaching of Christ, men may come to feel justified in a certain
suspension of judgment with regard to some of the miraculous
occurrences there related; may even grow to believe that an element of
exaggeration is there, that element of exaggeration which is never
absent from the writings of any age in which scientific historical
methods had no existence. A suspension of judgment, say: because in
the absence of any converging historical testimony to the events of the
New Testament, it will never be possible either to affirm or to deny
historically that the facts took place exactly as related; though,
indeed, the probability of their having so occurred may seem to be
diminished.

The controversialist, whose letter I read with bewilderment and pain,
involved his real belief in ingenious sentences, so that one would
think that he accepted the statements of the Old Testament, such as the
account of the Creation and the Fall, the speaking of Balaam's Ass, the
swallowing of Jonah by the whale, as historical facts. He went on to
say that the miraculous element of the New Testament is accredited by
the Revelation of God, as though some definite revelation of truth had
taken place at some time or other, which all rational men recognised.
But the only objective process which has ever taken place is, that at
certain Councils of the Church, certain books of Scripture were
selected as essential documents, and the previous selection of the Old
Testament books was confirmed. But would the controversialist say that
these Councils were infallible? It must surely be clear to all
rational people that the members of these Councils were merely doing
their