164 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



something about which I am obliged again to trouble the Bishop 

 of Peterborough, which is certainly no jesting matter. Referring 

 to my question, the bishop says that if they (the terms " infidel " 

 and " miscreant ") 



should not be so proved to be applicable, then I should hold it to be as unreason- 

 able to expect him to call himself by such names as he, I suppose, would bold it to 

 be to expect us Christians to admit, without better reason than he has yet given 

 us, that Christianity is "tbe sorry stuff" which, with his "profoundly "moral 

 readiness to say " unpleasant " things, he is pleased to say tbat it is.* 



According to those " English modes of thought and expres- 

 sion," of which the bishop seems to have but a poor opinion, this 

 is a deliberate assertion that I had said that Christianity is " sorry 

 stuff." And, according to the same standard of fair dealing, it is, 

 I think, absolutely necessary for the Bishop of Peterborough to 

 produce the evidence on which this positive statement is based. I 

 shall be unfeignedly surprised if he is successful in proving it ; 

 but it is proper for me to wait and see. 



Those who passed from Dr. Wace's article in the last number 

 of this review to the anticipatory confutation of it which followed 

 in " The New Reformation," must have enjoyed the pleasure of a 

 dramatic surprise — just as when the fifth act of a new play proves 

 unexpectedly bright and interesting. Mrs. Ward will, I hope, par- 

 don the comparison, if I say that her effective clearing away of 

 antiquated incumbrances from the lists of the controversy reminds 

 me of nothing so much as of the action of some neat-handed, but 

 strong-wristed, Phyllis, who, gracefully wielding her long-handled 

 " Turk's head," sweeps away the accumulated results of the toil of 

 generations of spiders. I am the more indebted to this luminous 

 sketch of the results of critical investigation, as it is carried out 

 among those theologians who are men of science and not mere 

 counsel for creeds, since it has relieved me from the necessity of 

 dealing with the greater part of Dr. Wace's polemic, and enables 

 me to devote more space to the really important issues which have 

 been raised, f 



Perhaps, however, it may be well for me to observe that appro- 

 bation of the manner in which a great biblical scholar, for instance 

 Reuss, does his work does not commit me to the adoption of all, or 

 indeed of any of his views ; and, further, that the disagreements 

 of a series of investigators do not in any way interfere with the 

 fact that each of them has made important contributions to the 



* "Popular Science Monthly" for May, 1889, p. 83. 



f I may perhaps return to the question of the authorship of the Gospels. For the pres- 

 ent I must content myself with warning my readers against any reliance upon Dr. Wace's 

 statements as to the results arrived at by modern criticism. They are as gravely as surpris- 

 ingly erroneous. 



