ere "full of sophistries and
scepticisms." He was especially bitter against Prof. Jowett's dictum,
"Interpret the Scripture like any other book"; he insisted that Mr.
Goodwin's treatment of the Mosaic account of the origin of man "sweeps
away the whole basis of inspiration and leaves no place for the
Incarnation"; and through the article were scattered such rhetorical
adornments as the words "infidel," "atheistic," "false," and "wanton."
It at once attracted wide attention, but its most immediate effect
was to make the fortune of Essays and Reviews, which was straightway
demanded on every hand, went through edition after edition, and became a
power in the land. At this a panic began, and with the usual results
of panic--much folly and some cruelty. Addresses from clergy and laity,
many of them frantic with rage and fear, poured in upon the bishops,
begging them to save Christianity and the Church: a storm of abuse
arose: the seven essayists were stigmatized as "the seven extinguishers
of the seven lamps of the Apocalypse," "the seven champions NOT of
Christendom." As a result of all this pressure, Sumner, Archbishop of
Canterbury, one of the last of the old, kindly, bewigged pluralists
of the Georgian period, headed a declaration, which was signed by the
Archbishop of York and a long list of bishops, expressing pain at
the appearance of the book, but doubts as to the possibility of any
effective dealing with it. This letter only made matters worse.
The orthodox decried it as timid, and the liberals denounced it as
irregular. The same influences were exerted in the sister island, and
the Protestant archbishops in Ireland issued a joint letter warning the
faithful against the "disingenuousness" of the book. Everything seemed
to increase the ferment. A meeting of clergy and laity having been held
at Oxford in the matter of electing a Professor of Sanscrit, the older
orthodox party, having made every effort to defeat the eminent scholar
Max Miller, and all in vain, found relief after their defeat in new
denunciations of Essays and Reviews.

Of the two prelates who might have been expected to breast the storm,
Tait, Bishop of London, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, bent to it
for a period, though he soon recovered himself and did good service; the
other, Thirlwall, Bishop of St. David's, bided his time, and, when the
proper moment came, struck most effective blows for truth and justice.

Tait, large-minded and shrewd, o