the interval. A Reform Bill was
carried. Catholics and Jews were emancipated, and freedom and cheapness
of the press were won by the untameable courage of men like Carlile,
Hetherington, Lovett, and Watson. But quietude reigned in the higher
spheres of literature. The age was eminently respectable, and it
acclaimed the highly respectable Wordsworth as, the prophet divinely
inspired to teach men how to rest and be thankful.

But during that interval of apathy and respectability, Science was
slowly gathering strength and making conquests, in preparation for the
time when she might plant her feet firmly on the solid ground she had
won, and challenge Theology to mortal combat. Geology and Biology,
in especial, were getting themselves ready to overthrow the fables of
Genesis and destroy its doctrines of special creation. And one is glad
to admit that they have completely succeeded at last. Professor Huxley
declares that he is not acquainted with any man of science or properly
instructed person who believes that Adam and Eve were the first parents
of mankind, or that we have all descended from the eight persons
who superintended that wonderful floating menagerie which survived a
universal deluge less than five thousand years ago. And all the clergy
can say in reply is that Professor Huxley is not endowed with that
theological faculty which enables them to perceive in the language of
Scripture a meaning which is quite undiscernible to the eyes of common
sense.

Another influence was at work during that interval. Mainly through
Carlyle, the treasures of German literature were opened up to English
readers. The greatest German writers, from Leasing, Goeethe, and Schiller
to Fichte, Richter, and Heine, were outrageous Freethinkers compared
with our own respectable and orthodox writers, and their influence soon
made itself evident in the tolerance and courage with which English
authors began to treat the great problems of morality and religion.
German scholarship, too, slowly crept among us. Its Biblical criticism
showed us the utter inadequacy of evidential works like Paley's, and
made us see that the Christian Scriptures would have to be viewed in a
very different light and studied in a very different spirit. To estimate
the extent of this change, we have only to place Paley's "Evidences of
Christianity" beside such a work as "Supernatural Religion." The
gulf between these works is enormous; and it is notable that the more
sci