Page:Tyranny of Shams (1916).djvu/278

262 smile at our criticism of the Old Testament, and see nothing improper in a deception of the ignorant, of which any body of professional laymen would be incapable, let us turn to the New Testament. It is always useful to consider the attitude of the clergy in its historical perspective. A hundred years ago they were defending against the Deists the absolute truthfulness of the Old Testament. Christ had promised the Holy Spirit to the Church: the Holy Spirit could not possibly tolerate untruth: therefore the teaching of the Church for sixteen centuries must be right. Within two generations they have, in a great number, abandoned the inerrancy of the Old Testament, without abandoning the Holy Spirit. It seems only the other day when Cardinal Newman pleaded wistfully that we were not compelled, under pain of eternal damnation, to believe that Tobit’s dog did really wag its tail. However, outside Scotland clergymen do seem to be free to form their own opinions on such allegations as that a whale swallowed a man and housed him for three days. But in thus admitting that “inspiration” was consistent with error, they have put the New Testament also in the hand of the critic.

It is well to remember, too, that this modern criticism of the Bible is conducted almost entirely by divines. The average churchgoer has an impression that these terrible people who are known as “the Higher Critics” are anti-clerical laymen: possibly lascivious gentlemen whose real ambition