Note 24 — Chapter I · THE GRAVITY OF THE PRESENT SITUATION

The time, then, has arrived when the pastor can no longer ignore or gloze over the thoughts that are stirring the minds of the intelligent portion of his flock. The cheap literature problem cannot be solved by applying disparaging adjectives, such as “shallow,” to writings emanating from the pens of Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, S. Laing, Matthew Arnold, Sir Leslie Stephen, Renan, Haeckel, etc., easy though it be to excite prejudice by the use of a condemnatory adjective. Books that are still costly will some day be available at popular prices, and increase the perplexities of the people. I refer to books of the type of Lecky’s Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe, Buckle’s History of Civilisation in England, Frazer’s Golden Bough, Forlong’s Short Studies of the Science of Comparative Religions, Doane’s Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions, J. M. Robertson’s Christianity and Mythology and Pagan Christs, Spencer’s Principles of Sociology (Vol. I., Part I., giving the Data of Sociology), Metchnikoff’s The Nature of Man, Haeckel’s The Evolution of Man,24 etc. Will not the Encyclopædia Biblica, with a title so innocent, and with an editor and many of its contributors in Holy Orders, soon find its way into our public libraries and be a thorn in the side of the orthodox? Think how a book such as Nunquam’s (Robert Blatchford) God and My Neighbour must already have been read by and have affected the convictions of thousands of the working class. And the grave doubts of a hard-headed artisan are not in the least likely to be dispelled by Anti-Nunquam,25 or any of the literature so far published as a panacea “in relief of doubt.”26 Indeed, some apologetic works are enough in themselves to create mistrust, though the reader had not read a single anti-Christian work! The extraordinary divergence in the views of the authors, to say nothing of the transparency of some of their arguments, prevents all chance of apologetics convincing any but those already determined to be convinced. The writer in one stage of thought absolutely contradicts a writer in another stage. Compare Goulburn and Pusey in their awful assertions of everlasting punishment with Allin’s Universalism Asserted and Larger Hope leaflets, or the views of a Wace regarding Evolution with the views of a Waggett. If we confine ourselves to making comparisons only between the advanced thinkers themselves, compare the opinions of Dr. Gore, Bishop of Birmingham (late of Worcester), with those of Canons Henson and Cheyne. The deplorable state of religious apologetics is becoming notorious, and articles bearing on the subject are now appearing from time to time in our leading magazines.27