CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 343 



struggling into utterance and being, all around us. . . . It is close 

 upon us — it is prepared by all the forces of history and mind — its 

 rise sooner or later is inevitable." This is prophesy, but it is not 

 argument ; and a little attention to Mrs. Ward's own statements 

 will exhibit a very different picture. The Christian representa- 

 tive in her dialogue exclaims : 



What is the whole history of German criticism hut a series of brilliant failures, 

 from Strauss downward ? One theorist follows another — now Mark is uppermost 

 as the Ur-Evangelist, now Matthew — now the Synoptics are sacrificed to St. John, 

 now St. John to the Synoptics. Baur relegates one after another of the Epistles 

 to the second century because his theory can not do with them in the first. Har- 

 nack tells you that Baur's theory is all wrong, and that Thessalonians and Philip- 

 pians must go back again. Yolkmar sweeps together Gospels and Epistles in a 

 heap toward the middle of the second century as the earliest date for almost all of 

 them ; and Dr. Abbott, who, as we are told, has absorbed all the learning of the 

 Germans, puts Mark before 70 A. d., Matthew just about 70 a. d., and Luke about 

 80 a. d. ; Strauss's mythical theory is dead and buried by common consent ; Baur's 

 tendency theory is much the same ; Renan will have none of the Tubingen school ; 

 Yolkmar is already antiquated ; and Pfleiderer's fancies are now in the order of the 

 day. 



A better statement could hardly be wanted of what is meant 

 by an attack having failed, and now let the reader observe how 

 Merriman in the dialogue meets it. Does he deny any of those 

 allegations ? Not one. " Very well/' he says, " let us leave the 

 matter there for the present. Suppose we go to the Old Testa- 

 ment " ; and then he proceeds to dwell on the concessions made 

 to the newest critical school of Germany by a few distinguished 

 English divines at the last Church Congress. I must, indeed, dis- 

 pute her representation of that rather one-sided debate as amount- 

 ing to " a collapse of English orthodoxy," or as justifying her state- 

 ment that " the Church of England practically gives its verdict " 

 in favor, for instance, of the school which regards the Pentateuch 

 or the Hexateuch as " the peculiar product of that Jewish relig- 

 ious movement which, beginning with Josiah, . . . yields its final 

 fruits long after the exile." Not only has the Church of England 

 given no such verdict, but German criticism has as yet given no 

 such verdict. For example, in the introduction to the Old Tes- 

 tament by one of the first Hebrew scholars of Germany, Prof. 

 Hermann Strack, contained in the valuable "Hand-book of the 

 Theological Sciences," edited, with the assistance of several distin- 

 guished scholars, by Prof. Zochler, I find, at page 215 of the third 

 edition, published this year, the following brief summary of what, 

 in Dr. Strack's opinion, is the result of the controversy so far : 



The future results of further labors in the field of Pentateuch criticism can not, 

 of course, be predicted in particulars. But, in spite of the great assent which the 

 view of Graf and Wellhausen at present enjoys, we are nevertheless convinced that 

 it will not permanently lead to any essential alteration in the conception which has 



