to be a crime for which the Maker of the universe has neither pardon nor pity.  Yet many reasons, not difficult to understand, have long continued to exclude theology from the region where free discussion is supposed to be applicable.  That so many persons have a personal interest in the maintenance of particular views, would of itself be fatal to fair argument.  Though they know themselves to be right, yet right is not enough for them unless there is might to support it, and those who talk most of faith show least that they possess it.  But there are deeper and more subtle objections.  The theologian requires absolute certainty, and there are no absolute certainties in science.  The conclusions of science are never more than in a high degree probable; they are no more than the best explanations of phenomena which are attainable in the existing state of knowledge.  The most elementary laws are called laws only in courtesy.  They are generalizations which are not considered likely to require modification, but which no one pretends to be in the nature of the cause exhaustively and ultimately true.  As phenomena become more complicated, and the data for the interpretation of them more inadequate, the explanations offered are put forward hypothetically, and are graduated by the nature of the evidence.  Such modest hesitation is altogether unsuited to the theologian, whose certainty increases with the mystery and obscurity of his matter; his convictions admit of no qualification; his truth is sure as the axioms of geometry; he knows what he believes, for he has the evidence in his heart; if he inquire, it is with a foregone conclusion, and serious doubt with him is sin.  It is in vain to point out to him the thousand forms of opinions for each of which the same internal witness is affirmed.  The Mayo peasant, crawling with bare knees over the flint points on Croagh Patrick, the nun prostrate before the image of St. Mary, the Methodist in the spasmodic extasy of a revival, alike are conscious of emotions in themselves which correspond to their creed:  the more passionate—­or, as some would say—­the more unreasoning the piety, the louder and more clear is the voice within.  But these varieties are no embarrassment to the theologian.  He finds no fault with the method which is identical in them all.  Whatever the party to which he himself belongs, he is equally satisfied that he alone has the truth; the rest are under illusions of Satan.

Again, we hear—­or we used to hear when the High Church party were more formidable than they are at present—­much about “the right of private judgment.”  Why, the eloquent Protestant would say, should I pin my faith upon the Church? the Church is but a congregation of fallible men, no better able to judge than I am.  I have a right to my own opinion.  It sounds like a paradox to say that free discussion is interfered with by a cause which, above all others, would have been expected to further it; but this in fact has been the effect,