XI PECULIAR CONTROVERSIAL METHODS 417 



Gospels, and of their claim to act as our instruct- 

 ors, outside that ethical province in which they 

 appeal to the consciousness of all thoughtful men. 

 And still, behind this problem, there lies another 

 how far do these ancient records give a sure 

 foundation to the prodigious fabric of Christian 

 dogma, which has been built upon them by the 

 continuous labours of speculative theologians, 

 during eighteen centuries ? 



I submit that there are few questions before 

 the men of the rising generation, on the answer 

 to which the future hangs more fatally, than this. 

 We are at the parting of the ways. Whether the 

 twentieth century shall see a recrudescence of the 

 superstitions of mediaeval papistry, or whether it 

 shall witness the severance of the living body of 

 the ethical ideal of prophetic Israel from the car- 

 case, foul with savage superstitions and cankered 

 with false philosophy, to which the theologians 

 have bound it, turns upon their final judgment of 

 the Gadarene tale. 



The gravity of the problems ultimately involved 

 in the discussion of the legend of Gadara will, I 

 hope, excuse a persistence in returning to the sub- 

 ject, to which I should not have been moved by 

 merely personal considerations. 



With respect to the diluvial invective which 

 overflowed thirty -three pages of the " Nineteenth 



