grounded in conventionalisms, is undoubtedly the cause of all the progress and liberty we have achieved in these modern times.
The weapon of the critical spirit is analysis. It dissects, searches, scrutinizes all things, and subjects every element to the test of reason and to the processes of inexorable science. It dissipates error, exposes fallacy and pretension, and separates the true from the false. It has no creed but truth, obtained by the study of facts and the universal organic laws which connect them together. Repudiating tradition and authority, it renders allegiance only to experiment, observation and reason.
This free spirit of inquiry has been turned with special earnestness to the analysis of the Bible and its claims to supernatural origin. Its decisions have been steadily adverse to those claims; and this is the true cause of modern infidelity with its innumerable phases, from the open atheist who scoffs at mystery and miracle, to the sincere thinker in the pulpit, who is secretly troubled in spirit at the doubts he cannot control and the questions he cannot answer.
The exercise of the critical spirit in the Church itself, has thrown its elements into a fearful state of ferment and dissension. The difficulty has been
