THE LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND OF SCIENCE. 633 



of a new science — the science of Historical Criticism. . . . The whole world of 

 profane history has been revolutionized. ... * 



If these utterances were true when they fell from the lips of a 

 Bampton lecturer in 1859, with how much greater force do they 

 appeal to us now, when the immense labors of the generation now 

 passing away constitute one vast illustration of the power and 

 fruitfulness of scientific methods of investigation in history, no 

 less than in all other departments of knowledge ! 



At the present time, I suppose, there is no one who doubts that 

 histories which appertain to any other people than the Jews, and 

 their spiritual progeny in the first century, fall within the second 

 class of the three enumerated. Like Goethe's Autobiography, 

 they might all be entitled Wahrheit und Dichtung — Truth and 

 Fiction. The proportion of the two constituents changes indefi- 

 nitely ; and the quality of the fiction varies through the whole 

 gamut of unveracity. But " Dichtung " is always there. For the 

 most acute and learned of historians can not remedy the imper- 

 fections of his sources of information ; nor can the most impartial 

 wholly escape the influence of the " personal equation " generated 

 by his temperament' and by his education. Therefore, from the 

 narratives of Herodotus to those set forth in yesterday's Times, 

 all history is to be read subject to the warning that fiction has its 

 share therein. The modern vast development of fugitive litera- 

 ture can not be the unmitigated evil that some do vainly say it is, 

 since it has put an end to the popular delusion of less press-ridden 

 times, that what appears in print must be true. We should rather 

 hope that some beneficent influence may create among the erudite 

 a like healthy suspicion of manuscripts and inscriptions, how- 

 ever ancient ; for a bulletin may lie, even though it be written in 

 cuneiform characters. Hotspur's starling, that was to be taught 

 to speak nothing but " Mortimer " into the ears of King Henry IV, 

 might be a useful inmate of every historian's library, if " Fiction " 

 were substituted for the name of Harry Percy's friend. 



But it was the chief object of the lecturer to the congregation 

 gathered in St. Mary's, Oxford, thirty-one years ago, to prove to 

 them, by evidence gathered with no little labor and marshaled 

 with much skill, that one group of historical works was exempt 

 from the general rule ; and that the narratives contained in the 

 canonical Scriptures are free from any admixture of error. With 

 justice and candor, the lecturer impresses upon his hearers that 

 the special distinction of Christianity, among the religions of the 

 world, lies in its claim to be historical ; to be surely founded upon 



* Bampton Lectures (1859), on The Historical Evidences of the Truth of the Scripture 

 Records stated anew, with Special Reference to the Doubts and Discoveries of Modern 

 Times, by the Rev. G. Rawlinson, M. A., pp. 5, 6. 

 vol. xxxvn. — 46 



