328 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion to the fact that, in this controversy, it is Prof. Huxley who 

 finds it requisite for his argument to insinuate that his opponents 

 are biased by sordid motives ; and I shall for the future leave him 

 and his sneers out of account, and simply consider his arguments 

 for as much, or as little, as they may be worth. For a similar 

 reason I shall confine myself as far as possible to the issue which 

 I raised at the Church Congress, and for which I then made my- 

 self responsible. I do not care, nor would it be of any avail, to 

 follow over the wide and sacred field of Christian evidences an 

 antagonist who resorts to the imputation of mean motives, and 

 who, as I shall show, will not face the witnesses to whom he him- 

 self appeals. The manner in which Prof. Huxley has met the 

 particular issue he challenged will be a sufficient illustration to 

 impartial minds of the value which is to be attached to any fur- 

 ther assaults which he may make upon the Christian position. 



Let me then briefly remind the reader of the simple question 

 which is at issue between us. What I alleged was that " an agnos- 

 ticism which knows nothing of the relation of man to God must 

 not only refuse belief to our Lord's most undoubted teaching, but 

 must deny the reality of the spiritual convictions in which he 

 lived and died." As evidence of that teaching and of those con- 

 victions I appealed to three testimonies — the Sermon on the 

 Mount, the Lord's Prayer, and the story of the Passion — and I 

 urged that whatever critical opinion might be held respecting the 

 origin and structure of the four Gospels, there could not be any 

 reasonable doubt that those testimonies " afford a true account of 

 our Lord's essential belief and cardinal teaching." In his original 

 reply, instead of meeting this appeal to three specific testimonies, 

 Prof. Huxley shifted the argument to the question of the general 

 credibility of the Gospels, and appealed to " the main results of 

 biblical criticism, as they are set forth in the works of Strauss, 

 Baur, Reuss, and Volkmar." He referred to these supposed " re- 

 sults " in support of his assertion that we know " absolutely noth- 

 ing " of the authorship or genuineness of the four Gospels, and 

 he challenged my reference to Kenan as a witness to the fact that 

 criticism has established no such results. In answer, I quoted 

 passage after passage from Penan and from Reuss showing that 

 the results at which they had arrived were directly contradictory 

 of Prof. Huxley's assertions. How does he meet this evidence ? 

 He simply says, in a foot-note, " For the present I must content 

 myself with warning my readers against any reliance upon Dr. 

 Wace's statements as to the results arrived at by modern criti- 

 cism. They are as gravely as surprisingly erroneous." I might 

 ask by what right Prof. Huxley thus presumes to pronounce, as it 

 were ex cathedra, without adducing any evidence, that the state- 

 ments of another writer are " surprisingly erroneous " ? But I in 



