Page:What We Want.djvu/98

we, who must defend with all our force the deposit which has been entrusted to us, have not reason to be in anguish in presence of this attack, which is not a heresy, but the compendium and poisonous essence of all heresies, which aims at undermining the foundations of the Faith and annihilating Christianity. Yes, at annihilating Christianity, for the Holy Scripture is no longer for these critics the trustworthy source of all the truths which pertain to the Faith, but a common book. For them inspiration is confined to its dogmatic teachings, and those understood after their fashion; is, indeed, but slightly distinguished from the poetical inspiration of Æschylus and of Homer. The Church is the legitimate interpreter of the Bible, but only if she submits her interpretation to the rules of so-called critical science, which imposes itself upon theology and makes it its slave. As for tradition, finally, everything is relative and subject to change, and so the authority of the holy Fathers is reduced to nothing. All these and a thousand other heresies they publish in pamphlets, in reviews, in ascetic treatises, even in novels, and they wrap them up in certain ambiguous terms, in certain