ing attention to error, because one marks it as an object for indulgence. To protesters of this sort I owe no deference and make no concessions. But the illustration has given pain, I am told, in a quarter where my deference, and the deference of all who can appreciate one of the purest careers and noblest characters of our time, is indeed due; and finding that in that quarter pain has been given by the illustration, I do not hesitate to expunge it.
The illustration, then, disappears; let me add a word or two as to the notion that Literature and Dogma is an attack upon Christianity. It is not even an attack upon the errors of popular Christianity. Those errors are very open to attack; they are much attacked already, and in a fashion, often, which I dislike and condemn; they will certainly be attacked more and more, until they perish. But it is not the object of Literature and Dogma to attack them. Neither, on the other hand, is it the object of Literature and Dogma to contend with the enemies and deniers of Christianity, and to convince them of their error. Sooner or later, indeed, they will be convinced of it, but by other agencies and through a quite other force than mine; it is not the object of Literature and Dogma to confute them.
The object of Literature and Dogma is to re-assure those who feel attachment to Christianity, to the Bible, but who recognise the growing discredit befalling miracles and the supernatural. Such persons are to be re-assured, not by disguising or extenuating the discredit which has befallen miracles and the supernatural, but by insisting on the natural truth of Christianity. That miracles have fallen into discredit
