g several centuries were safeguarded
against error. For, even granting that some books of the period were
inspired, they were certainly few amongst many; and those who selected
the canonical books, unless they themselves were also inspired, must
be regarded in the light of mere critics, and, from the evidence they
have left of their intellectual habits, very uncritical critics. When
one thinks that such delicate questions as those involved fell into
the hands of men like Papias (who believed in the famous millenarian
grape story); of Irenaeus with his "reasons" for the existence of only
four Gospels; and of such calm and dispassionate judges as Tertullian,
with his "Credo quia impossibile": the marvel is that the selection
which constitutes our New Testament is as free as it is from obviously
objectionable matter. The apocryphal Gospels certainly deserve to be
apocryphal; but one may suspect that a little more critical
discrimination would have enlarged the Apocrypha not inconsiderably.

At this point a very obvious objection arises and deserves full and
candid consideration. It may be said that critical scepticism carried
to the length suggested is historical pyrrhonism; that if we are
altogether to discredit an ancient or a modern historian, because he
has assumed fabulous matter to be true, it will be as well to give up
paying any attention to history. It may be said, and with great
justice, that Eginhard's "Life of Charlemagne" is none the less
trustworthy because of the astounding revelation of credulity, of lack
of judgment, and even of respect for the eighth commandment, which he
has unconsciously made in the "History of the Translation of the
Blessed Martyrs Marcellinus and Paul." Or, to go no further back than
the last number of the _Nineteenth Century_, surely that excellent
lady, Miss Strickland, is not to be refused all credence, because of
the myth about the second James's remains which she seems to have
unconsciously invented.

Of course this is perfectly true. I am afraid there is no man alive
whose witness could be accepted, if the condition precedent were proof
that he had never invented and promulgated a myth. In the minds of all
of us there are little places here and there, like the indistinguishable
spots on a rock which give foothold to moss or stonecrop; on which, if
the germ of a myth fall, it is certain to grow, without in the least
degree affecting our accuracy or truthfulness elsewhere. Sir Wa