tinguished from spurious letters. Accurate knowledge of the life and
teachings of Christ had become a vital necessity. The growth of legend and
fable, in the Apocryphal Gospels, threatened to swallow up the memory of
the real Jesus. A sifting process went on in the churches, by which the
unimportant and objectionable writings were gradually winnowed out and the
wheat retained.

The Christian consciousness tried and tested every writing, accepting
those which approved themselves inspired by inspiring.

In the course of time this thoroughly vital process, through which public
opinion passed upon the Christian writings, was recorded officially in the
legislative action of councils, and thus, after many incertitudes and
vacillations, the selection of sacred writings was finished and the New
Testament canon was closed. It was closed, as in the case of the canon of
the Old Testament, by the gradual loss of free spiritual and literary
productivity; closed, as the visions fade and the tides fall within the
soul, and the period of criticism follows the period of creation.

These writings became rightly sacred as the mementoes of the Divine Man,
and the counsels of the great apostles; a shrine in which men drew near to
the supreme manifestation of God upon earth. But they became wrongly
sacred also, as the lengthening lapse of time isolated these precious
heirlooms of the Christian household into relics it was blasphemy to
criticise; as the falling waters of the river of life stranded high above
men's reach the thoughts and experiences of the inspired fisher-folk of
Galilee. In the Dark Ages, when to read was a sign of distinction, and to
write a schoolboy history like "Eginhard's Charlemagne" was a prodigy;
when to lead clean lives, and to labor as hosts are doing now for their
fellows made a man a saint; the literary and spiritual power of the
apostles was nothing less than preternatural.

In the Reformation the old story repeated itself.

In the days of fresh inspiration men surely did not fail to prize the
blessed books whence had come their new life. But the sense of the divine
life in their own spirits enabled them to judge of the inspiration of the
Apostles at once reverently and rationally. They did not hesitate to
criticise freely the sacred books. Erasmus wrote of the Revelation:

"I certainly can find no reason for believing that it was set forth by
the Holy Spirit.... Moreover, even were it a blessed thing t