e that if the professor had held the belief in seven planets, and
no more, to be a necessary condition of salvation, his mental condition
would have been so dazed that even if he had consented to look through
Galileo's telescope, his eyes would have reported in accordance with his
inward alarms rather than with the external fact. So long as a belief in
propositions is regarded as indispensable to salvation, the pursuit of
truth _as such_ is not possible, any more than it is possible for a man
who is swimming for his life to make meteorological observations on the
storm which threatens to overwhelm him. The sense of alarm and haste,
the anxiety for personal safety, which Dr. Cumming insists upon as the
proper religious attitude, unmans the nature, and allows no thorough,
calm thinking no truly noble, disinterested feeling. Hence, we by no
means suspect that the unscrupulosity of statement with which we charge
Dr. Cumming, extends beyond the sphere of his theological prejudices; we
do not doubt that, religion apart, he appreciates and practices veracity.

A grave general accusation must be supported by details, and in adducing
those we purposely select the most obvious cases of
misrepresentation--such as require no argument to expose them, but can be
perceived at a glance. Among Dr. Cumming's numerous books, one of the
most notable for unscrupulosity of statement is the "Manual of Christian
Evidences," written, as he tells us in his Preface, not to give the
deepest solutions of the difficulties in question, but to furnish
Scripture Readers, City Missionaries, and Sunday School Teachers, with a
"ready reply" to sceptical arguments. This announcement that _readiness_
was the chief quality sought for in the solutions here given, modifies
our inference from the other qualities which those solutions present; and
it is but fair to presume that when the Christian disputant is not in a
hurry Dr. Cumming would recommend replies less ready and more veracious.
Here is an example of what in another place {74} he tells his readers is
"change in their pocket . . . a little ready argument which they can
employ, and therewith answer a fool according to his folly." From the
nature of this argumentative small coin, we are inclined to think Dr.
Cumming understands answering a fool according to his folly to mean,
giving him a foolish answer. We quote from the "Manual of Christian
Evidences," p. 62.

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