es for ages. And they may have acquired great
authority before they were combined in the Pentateuch.

Looking at the convergence of all these lines of evidence to the
one conclusion--that the story of the Flood in Genesis is merely a
Bowdlerised version of one of the oldest pieces of purely fictitious
literature extant; that whether this is, or is not, its origin, the
events asserted in it to have taken place assuredly never did take
place; further, that, in point of fact, the story, in the plain and
logically necessary sense of its words, has long since been given up by
orthodox and conservative commentators of the Established Church--I can
but admire the courage and clear foresight of the Anglican divine who
tells us that we must be prepared to choose between the trustworthiness
of scientific method and the trustworthiness of that which the Church
declares to be Divine authority. For, to my mind, this declaration of
war to the knife against secular science, even in its most elementary
form; this rejection, without a moment's hesitation, of any and all
evidence which conflicts with theological dogma--is the only position
which is logically reconcilable with the axioms of orthodoxy. If the
Gospels truly report that which an incarnation of the God of Truth
communicated to the world, then it surely is absurd to attend to any
other evidence touching matters about which he made any clear statement,
or the truth of which is distinctly implied by his words. If the exact
historical truth of the Gospels is an axiom of Christianity, it is as
just and right for a Christian to say, Let us "close our ears against
suggestions" of scientific critics, as it is for the man of science to
refuse to waste his time upon circle-squarers and flat-earth fanatics.

It is commonly reported that the manifesto by which the Canon of St.
Paul's proclaims that he nails the colours of the straitest Biblical
infallibility to the mast of the ship ecclesiastical, was put forth as
a counterblast to "Lux Mundi"; and that the passages which I have more
particularly quoted are directed against the essay on "The Holy Spirit
and Inspiration" in that collection of treatises by Anglican divines of
high standing, who must assuredly be acquitted of conscious "infidel"
proclivities. I fancy that rumour must, for once, be right, for it is
impossible to imagine a more direct and diametrical contradiction than
that between the passages from the sermon cited above and