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hard for him to listen calmly to the futile arguments used in 

 support of irrational doctrines, and to the misrepresentation of 

 antagonist doctrines. It is hard for him to bear the manifesta- 

 tion of that pride of ignorance which so far exceeds the pride 

 of science. Naturally enough, such a one will be indignant 

 when charged with irreligion, because he declines to accept 

 the carpenter-theory of creation as the most worthy one. He 

 may think it needless, as it is difficult, to conceal his repugnance 

 to a creed which tacitly ascribes to the Unknowable a love of 

 adulation such as would be despised in a human being. 

 Convinced as he is that all punishment, as we see it wrought 

 out in the order of nature, is but a disguised beneficence, there 

 will perhaps escape from him an angry condemnation of the 

 belief that punishment is a divine vengeance, and that divine 

 vengeance is eternal. He may be tempted to show his 

 contempt when he is told that actions instigated by an 

 unselfish sympathy, or by a pure love of rectitude, are 

 intrinsically sinful ; and that conduct is truly good only when 

 it is due to a faith whose openly-professed motive is other- 

 worldliness. But he must restrain such feelings," &c. 



And the Christian must also restrain his feelings of 

 " indignation," " repugnance," " angry condemnation," and 

 " contempt/' when he meets with such a burlesque of Chris- 

 tianity as that set forth in the paragraph just quoted. Not 

 being able to read the hearts of his fellow men, he must 

 endeavour to give them credit for good intentions, even when 

 they are misrepresenting and vilifying the religion which he 

 believes in his heart to be true, and on which he leans for 

 deliverance from the wrath to come. He must not allow 

 himself to be surpassed by the unbeliever in patience and 

 forbearance, when he sees the creed which he is accustomed to 

 hold in veneration painted in false colours, and finds doctrines 

 which, so far as they are believed and acted on, are calculated 

 to regenerate the world, represented as irrational, degrading, 

 and injurious to morality. This charitable spirit I shall 

 endeavour, with God's help, to maintain in dealing with Mr. 

 Spencer and others who assail the doctrines of Christianity. 

 I desire to believe that their study of the orderly and regular 

 processes of what we call nature, has caused them uncon- 

 sciously to see subjects of a different kind through a dis- 

 torting medium, and that they are not instigated by any wrong 

 motives or intentions. 



In all caricatures, a certain likeness to the original is 

 preserved. It is this, indeed, that gives them their piquancy. 

 And it is not difficult to see, in the above passage of Mr. 

 Spencer's, a likeness to the creed which is burlesqued in it, 

 sufficient to leave us without any doubt that Christianity 



