temper,—a passage that sets this forth very clearly. 'Despite the efforts of the churches,' he says, 'the speculations of the day are working their way down among the people, many of whom are asking for the reason and authority for the things they have been taught to believe. Questions of this kind, too, mostly reach them through doubtful channels; and owing to this, and to their lack of culture, a discovery of imperfection and fallibility in the Bible leads to its contemptuous rejection as a great priestly imposture. And thus those among the working class, who eschew the teachings of the orthodox, slide off towards, not the late Mr. Maurice, nor yet Professor Huxley, but towards Mr. Bradlaugh.'
Despite the efforts of the churches, the writer tells us, this contemptuous rejection of the Bible happens. And we regret the rejection as much as the clergy and ministers of religion do. There may be others who do not regret it, but we do. All that the churches can say about the importance of the Bible and its religion, we concur in. And it is the religion of the Bible that is professedly in question with all the churches, when they talk of religion and lament its prospects. With Catholics as well as Protestants, and with all the sects of Protestantism, this is so; and from the nature of the case it must be so. What the religion of the Bible is, how it is to be got at, they may not agree; but that it is the religion of the Bible for which they contend, they all aver. 'The Bible,' says Cardinal Newman, 'is the record of the whole revealed faith; so far all parties agree.' Now, this religion of the Bible we say they cannot value more than we do. If we hesitate to adopt strictly their language about
