cellent clerical and lay gentlemen to discuss in public meeting
assembled, how much it is desirable to let the congregations of the
faithful know of the results of biblical criticism, is likely to wake up
with anything short of the grasp of a rough lay hand upon its shoulder;
it is the question whether the New Testament books, being as I believe
they were, written and compiled by people who, according to their
lights, were perfectly sincere, will not, when properly studied as
ordinary historical documents, afford us the means of self-criticism.
And it must be remembered that the New Testament books are not
responsible for the doctrine invented by the Churches that they are
anything but ordinary historical documents. The author of the third
gospel tells us, as straightforwardly as a man can, that he has no claim
to any other character than that of an ordinary compiler and editor, who
had before him the works of many and variously qualified predecessors.

In my former papers, according to Dr. Wace, I have evaded giving an
answer to his main proposition, which he states as follows--

Apart from all disputed points of criticism, no one practically
doubts that our Lord lived, and that He died on the cross, in the
most intense sense of filial relation to His Father in Heaven, and
that He bore testimony to that Father's providence, love, and grace
towards mankind. The Lord's Prayer affords a sufficient evidence on
these points. If the Sermon on the Mount alone be added, the whole
unseen world, of which the Agnostic refuses to know anything,
stands unveiled before us.... If Jesus Christ preached that
Sermon, made those promises, and taught that prayer, then any one
who says that we know nothing of God, or of a future life, or of an
unseen world, says that he does not believe Jesus Christ (pp.
354-355).

Again--

The main question at issue, in a word, is one which Professor
Huxley has chosen to leave entirely on one side--whether, namely,
allowing for the utmost uncertainty on other points of the
criticism to which he appeals, there is any reasonable doubt that
the Lord's Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount afford a true account
of our Lord's essential belief and cardinal teaching (p. 355).

I certainly was not aware that I had evaded the questions here stated;
indeed I should say that I have indicated my reply to them pretty
clearly; b