will return; and why? Because they cannot do without it. Because happiness is our being's end and aim, and happiness belongs to righteousness, and righteousness is revealed in the Bible. For this simple reason men will return to the Bible, just as a man who tried to give up food, thinking it was a vain thing and he could do without it, would return to food; or a man who tried to give up sleep, thinking it was a vain thing and he could do without it, would return to sleep. Then there will come a time of reconstruction; and then, perhaps, will be the moment for labours, like this attempt of ours, to be found useful. For though everyone must read the Bible for himself, and the perfect criticism of it is an immense matter, and it may be possible to go much beyond what we here achieve or can achieve, yet the method for reading the Bible we, as we hope and believe, here give. And although, in this or that detail, the construction we put upon the Bible may be wrong, yet the main lines of the construction will be found, we hope and believe, right; and the reader who has the main lines may easily amend the details for himself.
Meanwhile to popular Christianity, from those who can see its errors, is due an indulgence inexhaustible, except where limits are required to it for the good of religion itself. Two considerations make this indulgence right. One is, that the language of the Bible being,—which is the great point a sound criticism establishes against dogmatic theology,—approximate, not scientific, in all expressions of religious feeling approximate language is lawful, and indeed is all we can attain to. It cannot be adequate, more or less proper it can be; but, in general, approximate language consecrated by use and religious feeling acquires therefrom a propriety of its own. This is the first consideration. The second is,
