262 THE PRIDE OF IGNORANCE. •> 



some side-meaning of an English word in the 

 Authorized Version of the Epistle to the Romans. 

 He was told by a better-educated bystander that 

 the Greek could not possibly bear the meaning he 

 assigned to it. " Greek ! " quoth the expounder, 

 opening his eyes. " What do I care about the 

 Greek indeed? D'ye think Paul knew Greek?" 

 In his simple soul he imagined that the learned 

 scholar of Tarsus, to whom the language of 

 Greece was in all probability a mother-tongue, 

 had delivered himself to the Church at Rome in 

 the precise phraseology of King James' bishoj)s. 



Pride of ignorance, when it takes this last offen- 

 sive form, is in all probability hopelessly incura- 

 ble. The man who can fortify his own errors or 

 mistakes by propping them up on the authoritj'- 

 of a Divine message is rarely to be dislodged from 

 the strange position he arrogates to himself in his 

 ignorant complacency. And yet it is curious that 

 at some time or other hardly a single great ac- 

 cepted truth has not so been opposed by dogmatic 

 ignorance, hardly a single superstitious belief has 

 not so been bolstered up by Scriptural warrant, 

 hardly a single gross injustice has not so been 

 justified by the misapplied text of some prophet 

 or apostle. The earth's revolution on its own 

 axes was denied, for example, against Galileo and 

 Copernicus, by the whole weight of the Church 

 of Rome. The law of gravitation was objected to 



