The sun of science,
at my back, was in his eyes. But, on the present occasion, we are
happily on an equality. History and Biblical criticism are as much, or
as little, my vocation as they are that of Mr. Gladstone; the blinding
from too much light, or the blindness from too little, may be presumed
to be equally shared by both of us.
Mr. Gladstone takes up his new position in the country of the
Gadarenes. His strategic sense justly leads him to see that the
authority of the teachings of the synoptic Gospels, touching the
nature of the spiritual world, turns upon the acceptance, or the
rejection, of the Gadarene and other like stories. As we accept, or
repudiate, such histories as that of the possessed pigs, so shall we
accept, or reject, the witness of the synoptics to such miraculous
interventions.
It is exactly because these stories constitute the key-stone of the
orthodox arch, that I originally drew attention to them; and, in spite
of my longing for peace, I am truly obliged to Mr. Gladstone for
compelling me to place my case before the public once more. It may be
thought that this is a work of supererogation by those who are aware
that my essay is the subject of attack in a work so largely circulated
as the "Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture"; and who may possibly, in
their simplicity, assume that it must be truthfully set forth in that
work.
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