178).
I am afraid, therefore, that Mr. Gladstone must have been exceedingly
angry when he committed himself to such a statement as follows:
So, then, after eighteen centuries of worship offered to our
Lord by the most cultivated, the most developed, and the
most progressive portion of the human race, it has been
reserved to a scientific inquirer to discover that He was no
better than a law-breaker and an evil-doer.... How, in such
a matter, came the honours of originality to be reserved to
our time and to Professor Huxley? (Pp. 269, 270.)
Truly, the hatchet is hardly a weapon of precision, but would seem to
have rather more the character of the boomerang, which returns to
damage the reckless thrower. Doubtless such incidents are somewhat
ludicrous. But they have a very serious side; and, if I rated the
opinion of those who blindly follow Mr. Gladstone's leading, but not
light, in these matters, much higher than the great Duke of
Wellington's famous standard of minimum value, I think I might fairly
beg them to reflect upon the general bearings of this particular
example of his controversial method. I imagine it can hardly commend
itself to their cool judgment.
After this tragi-comical ending to what an old historian calls a
"robustious and rough coming on"; and after some praises of the
provisions of the Mosaic law in the matter of not eating pork--in
which, as pork disagrees with me and for some other reasons, I am much
disposed to concur, though I do not see what they have to do with the
matter in hand--comes the serious onslaught.
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