THE CONTROVERSIALIST 197 



ble conclusion, the great mass of the unlearned clergy 

 will have warrant for the indiscriminate reading of the 

 legends of a talking ass ; an arrested sun ; of the 

 stories of Simeon and Levi's treachery and Jehu's 

 butcheries ; of the high ethical teaching of the 

 Prophets ; and of the beatitudes on the meek, the 

 peacemakers, and the pure in heart ; as equally in- 

 tegral parts of writings inspired " by the Holy Spirit." 

 Every Sunday in thousands of churches their congre- 

 gations are still told that " God Himself spake all 

 these words," saying, " In six days the Lord made 

 heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and 

 rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the 

 Sabbath day, and hallowed it." 1 Thus, as Emerson 

 says, " a vast carcass of tradition is exhibited every 

 year with as much solemnity as a new revelation." 



Criticism was not to be arrested by the blank page 

 which separates Malachi from Matthew ; but oppro- 

 brium greeted the critic. 2 



1 The clergy " are either propagating what they may easily 

 know, and therefore are bound to know, to be falsities ; or, if they 

 use the words in some non-natural sense, they fall below the moral 

 standard of the much-abused Jesuit." — Coll. Essays, ii. p. 146. 



2 Bishop (then Canon) Gore admits that the same criticism must 

 be applied to the New Testament as is applied to the Old, but he 

 qualifies this with the cryptic remark that •« because the historical 

 and literary conditions in the two cases are in general very differ- 

 ent, the result also will be in general very different." — Pilot, 10th 

 Aug., 1901. 



