Roman, the Byzantine, the British Empire have new and various images and superscriptions, but the gold is all one. So the definitions of the truth may be new, but the truth is old. It is the restless sea of human intellect casting up mire and darkness that forces the Church to make new dykes, and to guard the faith with new definitions. But some minds are weary of old truths, old terms, old phrases, old modes of teaching, old prayers, old devotions. They need the stimulus of novelty: new colours, new forms, new ways of stating old doctrines. It is with doctrines as with fashions: they must be always changing. Critics and authors, professors and preachers, often have a craving for originality. To be like their forefathers is to be commonplace; to strike out new lines, new ways of putting old truths, makes a reputation. It is only the Church that can revise the sacred terminology of faith. It alone "can bring forth things old and new." All other innovations are departures from the beaten path, which is safe because beaten, and beaten because it is the way of our forefathers in the faith. What is true in theology is more evidently true in the interpretation of the sacred Scripture. The love of novelty is always at work to find new meanings; and criticism is impatient of restraint. We live in an age of
