Xll PREFACE 



ever been able to see, nothing can be more 

 modest or inoffensive; to wit, that I am con- 

 vinced of my own utter ignorance about a great 

 number of things, respecting which the great 

 majority of my neighbours (not only those of 

 adult years, but children repeating their cate- 

 chisms) affirm themselves to possess full infor- 

 mation. I ask any candid and impartial judge, 

 Is that attacking anybody or anything ? 



Yet, if I had made the most wanton and arro- 

 gant onslaught on the honest convictions of other 

 people, I could not have been more hardly dealt 

 with. The pentecostal charism, I believe, ex- 

 hausted itself amongst the earliest disciples. Yet 

 any one who has had to attend, as I have done, to 

 copious objurgations, strewn with such appella- 

 tions as "infidel" and "coward/' must be a 

 hardened sceptic indeed if he doubts the exist- 

 ence of a "gift of tongues" in the Churches 

 of our time; unless, indeed, it should occur to 

 him that some of these outpourings may have 

 taken place after " the third hoar of the day." 

 I am far from thinking that it is worth while 

 to give much attention to these inevitable inci- 

 dents of all controversies, in which one party has 

 acquired the mental peculiarities which are gene- 

 rated by the habit of much talking, with immunity 

 from criticism. But as a rule, they are the sauce of 

 dishes of misrepresentations and inaccuracies which 

 it may be a duty, nay, even an innocent pleasure. 



