Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/154

 curiously and "artistically" shaped; I will not allow that venomous serpents should be encouraged in our back gardens for the sake of the iridescent colours which their scales display. There are those who would suffer putrid and stagnant water to collect in our highways for the pleasure of observing the green scum which gathers over such places; but against such madness as this I, at least, will never cease to raise my voice in horror and detestation.

And I must say that on the whole modern criticism has taken this view, which I maintain to be the only possible one. After all, even the most enraged mediævalists, the most atrabilious opponents of every kind of progress are obliged to confess that the present age is an ethical one. It is by the standard of ethics that we form our judgment of most things. Dogma may be on the wane, for as the worthy ex-president of the Wesleyan Conference so truly affirmed, dogma is not practical, and the twentieth century is nothing if not practical. As Dr. Forrest,