452 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Christianity received as certainly one of the most valuable, and 

 no less certainly the most attractive, of all church histories ever 

 written. 



The two great English histories of Greece that by Thirlwall, 

 which was finished, and that by Grote, which was begun, in the 

 middle years of the nineteenth century came in to strengthen 

 this new development. By application of the critical method to 

 historical sources, by pointing out more and more fully the in- 

 evitable part played by myth and legend in early chronicles, by 

 displaying more and more clearly the ease with which interpola- 

 tions of texts, falsifications of statements, and attributions to 

 pretended authors were made, they paved the way still further 

 toward a just and fruitful study of sacred literature.* 



Down to the middle of the nineteenth century the traditionally 

 orthodox side of English scholarship, while it had not been able 

 to maintain any effective quarantine against Continental criticism 

 of classical literature, had been able to keep up barriers fairly 

 strong against Continental discussions of sacred literature. But 

 in the second half of the nineteenth century these barriers were 

 broken at many points, and, the stream of German thought being 

 united with the current of devotion to truth in England, there 

 appeared early in 18G0 a modest volume entitled Essays and Re- 

 views. This work discussed various subjects in which the older 

 theological positions had been rendered untenable by modern re- 

 search, and brought to bear upon them the views of the newer 

 school of biblical interpretation. The authors were, as a rule, 

 scholars in the prime of life, holding influential positions in the 

 universities and public schools. They were seven the first be- 

 ing Dr. Temple, a successor of Arnold at Rugby ; and the others, 

 the Rev. Dr. Rowland Williams, Prof. Baden Powell, the Rev. H. 



* For Mr. Gladstone's earlier opinion, see his Church and State and Macaulay's review 

 of it. For Pusey, see Mozley, Ward, Newman's Apologia, Dean Church, etc., and especially 

 his Life by Liddon. Very characteristic touches are given in vol. i, showing the origin of 

 many of his opinions (see letter on p. 184). For the scandalous treatment of Mr. Everett 

 by the clerical mob at Oxford, see a rather jaunty account of the preparations and of the 

 whole performance in a letter written at the time from Oxford by the late Dean Church in 

 The Life and Letters of Dean Church, London, 1894, pp. 40, 41. For a succinct and 

 brilliant history of the Bentley-Boyle controversy, see Macaulay's article on Bentley in the 

 Encyclopaedia Britannica; also Beard's Hibbert Lectures for 1893, pp. 344, 345; also Dis- 

 sertation in Bentley's works, edited by Dyce, London, 1836, vol. i, especially the preface. 

 For Wolf, see his Prolegomena ad Homerum, Halle, 1*795 ; for its effects, see the admirable 

 brief statement in Beard, as above, p. 345. For Niebuhr, see his Roman History, trans- 

 lated by Hare and Thirlwall, London, 1828 ; also Beard, as above. For Milman's view, see, 

 as a specimen, his History of the Jews, last edition, especially pp. 15-27. For a noble 

 tribute to his character, see the preface to Lecky's History of European Morals. For 

 Thirlwall, see his History of Greece, passim ; also his letters ; also his Charge of the 

 Bishop of St. David's, 1863. 



