II
THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
Christianity is war: it is also peace confidence and happiness as well as onslaught and struggle; meditation as well as sacrifice. The gift of the Spirit is indeed the gift of Christ—not peace, but a sword; but, and therein lies the paradox of his infinite range, the gift is also the quiet flow of wisdom. Inspiration is not only enthusiasm; it is also critical common sense.
Now, many people have utterly departed from spiritual Christianity. To some the work of the Holy Ghost has meant, not science, but the opposition to science of a dogma of verbal inspiration, which was used to protect certain writings against that very faculty of judgement which is the working of the Spirit. The complicated tangle of ancient renderings, the various points of view, stages of development, and opportunities of knowledge, which ancient writers had, were all resolved into a final infallibility, and this because they were inspired. Inspiration covered the Book of Judges, or Esther, with consequent infallibility; it covered equally a passage in S. Mark and a different rendering of the same in S. Matthew, or a letter of doubtful
