AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY 347
sometimes perishing, from its efforts to rid itself of this foreign substance. What terrible evil to a man's mind must, then, result from this rendering of the teaching of the Old and New Testaments — foreign alike to present- day knowledge, and to common-sense, and to moral feeling — and instilled into him at a time when he is unable to judge, but accepts all that is given him !
For a man — into whose mind has been introduced as sacred truths a belief in the creation of the world out of nothing 6,000 years ago ; in the flood, and Noah's ark which accommodated all the animals ; in a Trinity ; in Adam's fall ; in an immaculate conception ; in Christ's miracles, and in salvation for men by the sacrifice of his death — for such a man the demands of reason are no longer obligatory, and such a man cannot be sure of any truth. If the Trinity, and an immacu- late conception, and the salvation of mankind by the blood of Jesus, are possible — then anything is possible, and the demands of reason are not obligatory.
Drive a wedge between the floor-boards of a granary, and no matter how much grain you may pour into the granary, it will not stay there. Just so a head into which the wedge has been driven of a Trinity, or of a God who became man and redeemed the human race by his sufferings and then flew up into the sky, can no longer grasp any reasonable or firm understanding of life.
However much you may put into the granary which has cracks in its floor, all will run out. Whatever you may put into a mind which has accepted nonsense as a matter of faith, nothing will remain in it.
Such a man, if he values his beliefs, will inevitably, all his life long, either be on his guard (as against something harmful) against all that might enlighten him and destroy his superstitions ; or — having once for all assumed (and the preachers of Church doctrine will always encourage him in this) that reason is the source of error — he will repudiate the only light given to man to enable him to find his path of life ; or, most terrible of all, he will, by cunning argumentation, try
