when nevertheless, bibliolatry was
rampant; when church and chapel alike proclaimed, as the oracles of
God, the crude assumptions of the worst informed and, in natural
sequence, the most presumptuously bigoted, of all theological schools.

In accordance with promises made on my behalf, but certainly without
my authorisation, I was very early taken to hear "sermons in the
vulgar tongue." And vulgar enough often was the tongue in which some
preacher, ignorant alike of literature, of history, of science, and
even of theology, outside that patronised by his own narrow school,
poured forth, from the safe entrenchment of the pulpit, invectives
against those who deviated from his notion of orthodoxy. From dark
allusions to "sceptics" and "infidels," I became aware of the
existence of people who trusted in carnal reason; who audaciously
doubted that the world was made in six natural days, or that the
deluge was universal; perhaps even went so far as to question the
literal accuracy of the story of Eve's temptation, or of Balaam's ass;
and, from the horror of the tones in which they were mentioned, I
should have been justified in drawing the conclusion that these rash
men belonged to the criminal classes. At the same time, those who were
more directly responsible for providing me with the knowledge
essential to the right guidance of life (and who sincerely desired to
do so), imagined they were discharging that most sacred duty by
impressing upon my childish mind the necessity, on pain of reprobation
in this world and damnation in the next, of accepting, in the strict
and literal sense, every statement contained in the Protestant Bible.
I was told to believe, and I did believe, that doubt about any of them
was a sin, not less reprehensible than a moral delict. I suppose that,
out of a thousand of my contemporaries, nine hundred, at least, had
their minds systematically warped and poisoned, in the name of the God
of truth, by like discipline. I am sure that, even a score of years
later, those who ventured to question the exact historical accuracy of
any part of the Old Testament and _a fortiori_ of the Gospels, had to
expect a pitiless shower of verbal missiles, to say nothing of the
other disagreeable consequences which visit those who, in any way, run
counter to that chaos of prejudices called public opinion.

My recollections of this time have recently been revived by the
perusal of a remarkable document,[9] signed by as many