So, at all
events, it will seem to the millions of his young readers and to the
working classes.
Let us follow him in some of his destructive criticism, or rather
denunciations, in order to observe his mode of procedure. "The
discoveries of science ... make it impossible for _sincere_ men to
retain the faith," &c., [41] therefore all who differ from Mr. Laing are
insincere. "It is _absolutely certain_ that portions of the Bible are
not true; and those, important portions." [42] This is based on two
premisses which are therefore absolutely certain, (i) Mr. Laing's
conclusions about the antiquity of man--of which more anon; (43) his
baldly literal interpretation of the Bible as delivered to him in his
early "infancy. On p. 253, we have the ancient difficulty from the New
Testament prophecy of the proximate end of the world, without the
faintest indication that it was felt 1800 years ago, and has been dealt
with over and over again. Papias [44] is lionized [45] in order to upset
the antiquity of the four Gospels--which upsetting, however, depends on
a dogmatic interpretation of an ambiguous phrase, and the absence of
positive testimony.
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