VIII AGNOSTICISM : A REJOINDER 269 



Christianity, to the intoxication and delusion of 

 mankind, lies in copious draughts from the 

 undefiled spring, that I exercise the right and 

 duty of^free judgment on the part of every man, 

 mainly for the purpose of inducing other ]aymen 

 to follow my example. If the New Testament 

 is translated into Zulu by Protestant missionaries, 

 it must be assumed that a Zulu convert is compe- 

 tent to draw from its contents all the truths which 

 it is necessary for him to believe. I trust that I 

 may, without immodesty, claim to be put on the 

 same footing as a Zulu. 



The most constant reproach which is launched 

 against persons of my way of thinking is that it is 

 all very well for us to talk about the deductions 

 of scientific thought, but what are the poor and 

 the uneducated to do ? Has it ever occurred ~to 

 those who talk in this fashion, that their creeds 

 and the articles of their several confessions, their 

 determination of the exact nature and extent of 

 the teachings of Jesus, their expositions of the 

 real meaning of that which is written in the 

 Epistles (to leave aside all questions concerning 

 the Old Testament), are nothing more than 

 deductions which, at any rate, profess to be the 

 result of strictly scientific thinking, and which are 

 not worth attending to unless they really possess 

 that character ? If it is not historically true that 

 such and such things happened in Palestine 

 eighteen centuries ago, what becomes of Chris- 



