our faith, not only ought we to have no fear of science, which, when it is true and certain, is itself also an emanation of the Divine Truth, but we ought also to hope from such control for an ever more living light upon the truths which form the pivot of our religious life.
It is on this account that we have not hesitated to subject to our critical researches the history of other religions together with our own, since they also are revelations of God to the human soul, imperfect, indeed, as compared with ours by reason of the different moral, physical, and geographical conditions of the different peoples, but, in spite of that, revelations also, as St. Paul could justly say. Nor does the application to the Bible of the same laws of historico-philological and literary criticism, which are used for what is called profane literature, mean for us—as you accuse us of meaning—that we make no distinction between its inspiration and the poetical inspiration of Homer
