argument. In the first
moment of irritation, I can well understand that hard hitting, even
below the belt, might be indulged in against my work by an exasperated
theologian--for even a bishop is a man,--but that such attacks should
not only be perpetuated, but repeated after years of calm reflection,
is at once an error and a compliment for which I was not prepared.
Anything to prevent readers from taking up _Supernatural Religion_:
any misrepresentation to prejudice them against its statements.
Elaborate literary abuse against the author is substituted for the
effective arguments against his reasoning which are unhappily wanting.
In the later editions of my work, I removed everything that seemed
likely to irritate or to afford openings for the discussion of minor
questions, irrelevant to the main subject under treatment. Whilst
Dr. Lightfoot in many cases points out such alterations, he republishes
his original attacks and demonstrates the disparaging purpose of
his Essays by the reiterated condemnation of passages which had so
little to do with the argument that they no longer exist in the
complete edition of Supernatural Religion. Could there be more
palpable evidence of the frivolous and superficial character of
his objections? It is not too much to say that in no part of these
Essays has Dr. Lightfoot at all seriously entered upon the fundamental
proposition of _Supernatural Religion_. He has elaborately criticised
notes and references: he has discussed dates and unimportant details:
but as to the question whether there is any evidence for miracles and
the reality of alleged Divine Revelation, his volume is an absolute
blank. Bampton Lecturers and distinguished apologetic writers have
frankly admitted that the Christian argument must be reconstructed.
They have felt the positions, formerly considered to be impregnable,
crumbling away under their feet, but nothing could more forcibly expose
the feebleness of the apologetic case than this volume of Dr Lightfoot's
Essays. The substantial correctness of the main conclusions of
_Supernatural Religion_ is rendered all the more apparent by the
reply to its reasoning. The eagerness with which Dr. Lightfoot and
others rush up all the side issues and turn their backs upon the
more important central proposition is in the highest degree remarkable.
Those who are in doubt and who have understood what the problem to
be solved really is will not get any help from his volume.

T