pe. When the rumour once got abroad, that it proceeded from the
pen of a learned and venerable prelate, the success of the book was
secured. For this rumour indeed there was no foundation in fact. It was
promptly and emphatically denied, when accidentally it reached the ears
of the supposed author. But meanwhile the report had been efficacious.
The reviewers had taken the work in hand and (with one exception)
lavished their praises on the critical portions of it. The first edition
was exhausted in a few months.

No words can be too strong to condemn the heartless cruelty of this
imputation. The venerable prelate, on whom the authorship of this
anonymous work was thrust, deserved least of all men to be exposed to
such an insult. As an academic teacher and as an ecclesiastical ruler
alike, he had distinguished himself by a courageous avowal of his
opinions at all costs. For more than a quarter of a century he had lived
in the full blaze of publicity, and on his fearless integrity no breath
of suspicion had ever rested. Yet now, when increasing infirmities
obliged him to lay down his office, he was told that his life for years
past had been one gigantic lie. The insinuation involved nothing less
than this. Throughout those many years, during which the anonymous
author, as he himself tells us, had been preparing for the publication
of an elaborate and systematic attack upon Christianity, the bishop was
preaching Christian doctrine, confirming Christian children, ordaining
Christian ministers, without breathing a hint to the world that he felt
any misgiving of the truths which he thus avowed and taught. Yet men
talked as if, somehow or other, the cause of 'freethinking' had gained
great moral support from the conversion of a bishop, though, if the
rumour had been true, their new convert had for years past been guilty
of the basest fraud of which a man is capable.

And all the while there was absolutely nothing to recommend this
identification of the unknown author. The intellectual characteristics
of the work present a trenchant contrast to the refined scholarship and
cautious logic of this accomplished prelate. Only one point of
resemblance could be named. The author shows an acquaintance with the
theological critics of the modern Dutch school; and a knowledge of Dutch
writers was known, or believed, to have a place among the acquisitions
of this omniscient scholar. Truly no reputation is safe, when such a
reputation is tr