Ancient Faiths And Modern Part 21

Four years after this the ghosts of Sogoro and of his wife and family begin to torment their late cruel lord. His lady is gradually frightened to death; the crucified couple appear to her and to her husband in a far more fearful form than Jesus is said to have appeared to Constantine.

They threaten both with the pains of h.e.l.l, and declare that they have come to take them there; and with them come other ghosts, who hoot, yell, laugh, and come and go at pleasure. No one, not even priests, could quiet the frightful sounds, or get rid of the horrible sights.

Violence was wholly unavailing; mystic rites, incantations, and prayers were alike useless. The visions appeared at first by day, but subsequently by night. They were visible to everybody. But, after a long consultation, the once brutal, but now humbled, n.o.bleman agrees to erect a shrine to the crucified man, and to pay him divine honours. This was done: Sogoro became a saint, under the name of Sogo Daimiyo, and the ghosts appeared no more. But terrible misfortunes fall upon the Lord Kotsuke, and he "began to feel that the death of his wife, and his own present misfortunes, were a just retribution for the death of Sogoro and his wife and children, and he was as one awakened from a dream. Then, night and morning, in his repentance, he offered up prayers to the sainted spirit of the dead farmer, acknowledged and bewailed his crime, vowing that, if his own family were spared from ruin, and re-established, intercession should be made at the court of the Mikado on behalf of the spirit of Sogoro, so that, being wors.h.i.+pped with even greater honours than before, his name should be handed down to all generations" (p. 43). In a foot note we learn that the Mikado of j.a.pan could, like the Pope of Rome, confer posthumous divine honours upon whom he pleased. The tale tells us that, by the means just before alluded to, the spirit of Sogoro was appeased, and then positively became his quondam enemy's patron saint, and was universally respected in all that part of the country. His shrine was made beautiful as a gem, and night and day the devout wors.h.i.+pped at it Mitford adds (p. 47)--"The belief in ghosts appears to be as universal as that of the immortality of the soul upon which it depends. Both in China and j.a.pan the departed spirit is invested with the power of revisiting the earth, and, in a visible form, tormenting its enemies, and haunting those places where the perishable part of it mourned and suffered. Haunted houses are slow to find tenants, for ghosts almost always come with revengeful intent; indeed, the owners of such houses will almost pay men to live in them, such is the dread which they inspire, and the anxiety to blot out the stigma."

The parallel between an episode in Palestine, and that herein described as having occurred in j.a.pan, will be completed if the reader remembers the pa.s.sage in the Epistle to the Romans, wherein Paul, after speaking of the fall of the Jews, subsequent to the death of Jesus--who gave his life for others--remarks, "if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead" (Rom. xi. 15).

In addition to the ghost story above described, many others are detailed by Mr Mitford that are exact counterparts of some of those most firmly believed by orthodox Christians, and most commonly met with in novelettes and magazines. We give a digest of them--

A paterfamilias is thrown into prison for gambling. After being confined some time, he returns home one night pale and thin, and, after receiving congratulations, he tells the friends a.s.sembled that he is permitted to leave the prison that evening by the jailers, for that he is to be returned to them the next day publicly. When the time arrives, they are summoned to remove his corpse--he had died the night before, and it was his ghost which had appeared. Compare Acts v. 19, and xii. 7-14.

The next runs thus--A cruel policeman had a housemaid, who broke one of ten plates which he valued--she confessed the accident to the mistress.

When the master came to hear of the loss, he tied the girl to a cupboard, and cut off one of her fingers daily. She managed to escape, and drowned herself in the garden well. Every night afterwards there was a noise from the well, counting up to nine, and then came a burst of grief. All the retainers left the place; the magistrate could not perform his duties, and was dismissed. The ghost was ultimately laid by a priest.

After recounting this story, Mitford remarks--"The laying of disturbed spirits appears to form one of the regular functions of the Buddhist priests; at least, we find them playing a conspicuous part in every ghost story" (p. 50).

The next tale is one of a haunted house. No paying tenant will live there, but a poor fencing master takes it for nothing. He first hears a terrific noise in the garden pond, and, on looking, sees a dark cloud enshrining a bald head. He inquires, and discovers that a former tenant, ten years ago, murdered a money-lender, and threw his head into the water. The actual tenant now drains the pond, finds the skull, takes it for burial to a temple, causing prayers to be offered up for the repose of the murdered man's soul. Thus the ghost was laid, and appeared no more. This tale serves as an additional means of recognizing the descent of Papism from Buddhism.

Returning once again to Europe, we find that the ancient Greeks had not only an idea of the resurrection of the dead, and life after death, but that departed spirits could be summoned to appear by the living. For example, at the opening of the eleventh book of the Odyssey, Ulysses recounts how-he offered a certain sacrifice, and tells us that, after it, the souls of the perished dead came forth from Erebus--betrothed girls and youths--much enduring old men, and tender virgins having a newly grieved mind--and many Mars-renowned men, wounded with bra.s.s-tipped spears, possessing gore-smeared arms, who in great numbers were wandering about the trench, on different sides, with a divine clamour, and pale fear seized upon me.... At first the soul of my companion, Elpenor, came, for he was not yet buried.... The shade addressed the hero, and, after telling the manner of his own death, entreats to have his corpse burned, and a tomb to be placed over it After this shade, appears Ulysses' mother, then Theban Tiresias, having a golden sceptre (Bohn's translation, pp. 147, 8). The rest of the book is made up of a number of dialogues between the traveller and the ill.u.s.trious dead.

The following, from Herodotus (vi. 68, 69), might have been introduced into chapter viii, for it is not only an example of a ghost, but of supernatural generation--but it is most appropriate here. Demaratus, having been twitted by certain persons that he was not the son of his putative father, who was known to be impotent, and that he was begotten by a mean man--a feeder of a.s.ses--adjures his mother, by a most solemn oath, to tell the truth. She replies--When Ariston had taken me to his own house, on the third night from the first a spectre, resembling Ariston, came to me, and having lain with me, put on me a crown that it had, it departed, and afterwards Ariston came; but when he saw me with the crown, he asked who it was that gave it me. I said, he did; but he would not admit it.... Ariston, seeing that I affirmed with an oath, discovered that the event was superhuman; and, in the first place, the crown proved to have come from the shrine... situate near the palace gates, which they call Astrabacus's; and, in the next place, the seers p.r.o.nounced that it was the hero himself. We need not dwell upon the miracle, being only desirous to show that, in the time of Herodotus, ideas of the return of departed spirits to earth were common--had it not been so, the story would not have been conceived. See also _Herod_ iv.

14, 15; _aesch Theb_. 710; _cf. Porson on Eur_. Or. 401; _aesch Ag_. 415.

Perhaps the most striking example of a phantom is given in Herodotus viii. 84, where a spectre, in a woman's form, appeared, and cheered the Greeks on s.h.i.+pboard to a battle, saying, so that all the warriors heard her--"Dastards, how long will you back water?"

In more recent times, Iamblicus (on the _Mysteries_, section ii, chap, iv.), speaking of different celestial and ordinarily invisible powers, observes--"In the motions of the heroic phasmata (or apparitions--phantoms or ghosts) a certain magnificence presents itself to the view." In the phasmata of the Archons the first energies appear to be most excellent and authoritative, and the phasmata of souls are seen to be the more moveable, yet are more imbecile, than those of heroes.... The magnitude of the epiphanies (or manifestations) in the G.o.ds, indeed, is so great, as sometimes to conceal all heaven.1' Then the author describes how this brilliancy is less in each inferior order of spirits, and is smallest in those souls below the grade of heroes (Taylor's translation, pp. 89, 90). In sect iii., chap, iii., the same writer remarks--"The soul has a twofold life, one being in conjunction with the body, the other being separated from all body." Again, in chap. x.x.xi.--"Still worse is the explanation of sacred operations, which a.s.signs, as the cause of divination, a certain genus of daemons, which is naturally fraudulent, omniform, and various, and which a.s.sumes the appearance of G.o.ds and daemons, and the souls of the deceased" (Taylor's ed., p. 199). _Le Dictionnaire Infernal_, which I have previously described, gives two very modern-like histories from the Greeks, under the names Philinnion and Polycritus; but, as I cannot verify them by reference, I shall say no more of them.

When we come to speak about the Romans, the first history which occurs to my mind is the well-known statement, that the ghost of Caesar appeared to Brutus before the battle in which the latter met with his death. The narrator of the story dwells somewhat upon the coolness with which the living hero encounters the shade of the dead, as if it were strange for people, when they saw ghosts, not to be terrified. I think that we may believe in the Etruscans having an idea of invisible spirits becoming occasionally apparent, inasmuch as in a sepulchral painting, in the tomb of the Tarquinii, the shade of Patroclus is represented as standing over Achilles as he kills the Trojan captives in sacrifice.

In later times, Otho declared that Galba's ghost had appeared to him, and had tumbled him out of bed (Suetonius' _Lives of the Caesars_, Otho, vii).

We may take our next ill.u.s.tration from Cicero upon the nature of the G.o.ds. In book 2, ch. ii.,--"Who now," he makes Lucilius say, "believes in Hippocentaurs and Chimeras? or what old woman is now to be found so weak and ignorant as to stand in fear of those infernal monsters which once so terrified mankind? For time destroys the fictions of error and opinion, whilst it confirms the determinations of nature and truth. And therefore it is that, both amongst us and amongst other nations, sacred inst.i.tutions and the divine wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds have been strengthened and improved from time to time; and this is not to be imputed to chance alone, but to the frequent appearance of the G.o.ds themselves. In the war with the Latins... Castor and Pollux were seen fighting with our army on horseback... and as P. Vatienus... was coming in the night to Rome...

two young men on white horses appeared to him, and told him that king Perses was that day taken prisoner." He told the news and was imprisoned as a liar; but further information confirmed the ghost's story, and he was liberated and rewarded."... The voices of the Fauns have been often heard, and deities have appeared in forms so visible that they have compelled everyone, who is not senseless or hardened in impiety, to confess the presence of the G.o.ds" (Bohn's translation, p. 46). In page 186 of the same edition, two remarkable instances are given wherein supernatural voices told of approaching trouble, and how it was to be avoided. No notice was taken of the warning, and the misfortunes which had been foretold occurred. The second miracle very closely resembled the modern voice of the Virgin at Lourdes.

Whilst I was writing the preceding remarks, my attention was called by a friend to the following remarks in _The Examiner_, which seem to me so appropriate to this chapter and the preceding one, that I gladly quote them:--"If there is anything more striking than the thoughtless credulity with which men accept statements agreeing with their preconceptions, it is the stubborn incredulity with which they receive statements at variance with those preconceptions. The devotees of each religion, and even of each sect into which a religion is so commonly split up, accept and even adore the absurdities of their own belief, while they scan, with a sceptical severity that cannot be surpa.s.sed, the not greater follies of other systems of belief. In no respect is this fact more glaring than in the case of miracles. Each Church has its own special miracles, devoutly believed in, but repels with contempt or horror the alleged miracles of other religions. Happy that it is so.

Were superst.i.tion not in its essence and nature a dividing folly, could it but muster in one herd all its votaries, common sense and truth would have a hard battle for existence."

At this point of my subject, I feel the natural inclination of a physician to enter upon those changes in the nervous centres which induce individuals to hear, feel, and see, noises, sensations, and spectra, which have no real existence. But with the majority of experienced medical men, the matter is so well known that it would be idle for me to dwell upon it, further than to say, that it is a matter of fact that many an individual who hears and sees words and beings which are illusions, acts upon them as if they were real. Many an a.s.sault upon some quiet citizen, many an instance of wilful mischief, and even of murder, is due to a communication made, apparently by a supernatural visitor, to a person who has fully believed it. To a man in his perfect senses the delusive character of a spectre, or a message given in an audible voice may be readily recognized; but when an individual has a diseased brain, all delusions seem real, and it is a part of the affection that they are not only recognized, but acted on.

The question has often suggested itself to my own mind, "How much has insanity of mind had to do with religion?" In modern times, the psychologist can readily see how far Swedenborg, Johanna Southcote, and many others, were influenced by a diseased condition of the brain; he can also see indications of lunacy in Ezekiel and the author of Daniel.

But he is unable to prosecute the subject far without discovering that mental weakness is often bolstered up by fraud. Nothing is more easy than for an intelligent physician to understand the physical causes of such visions as certain religionists have talked of. But when a spurious miracle, like that of the apparition of a talking, immaculately-conceived Virgin at Lourdes, is traded on, the occurrence leaves the region of folly, and enters that of fraud. Into that it is injudicious to enter here.

I may, however, advert to the current belief that certain individuals in the same family have, for many succeeding generations, their death foretold by some "wraith" or "phantom" appearing to them. This story is probably founded upon the fact that hereditary brain disease exists in the const.i.tution of all such persons, and that its occurrence in each victim is marked by an ocular, and, perhaps, some aural delusion. The apparition may seem real to the diseased nervous system, though it has no absolute existence.

We are then constrained to believe that the idea of ghosts has not arisen, in the first place, from any peculiar form of religious belief, but from the fact that in all inhabitants of the world there has existed that form of insanity which consists in the victim believing that he hears and sees individuals, inaudible and unseen by others. It is not, however, necessary that there shall be insanity with the hallucinations referred to; for I am personally acquainted with many individuals who have both seen and heard, as they imagine, persons and voices, but of whose sanity I have no doubt. Such delusions often come from overstudy, or too great mental emotion; and the medical worker in his closet and the Roman general in his tent may equally see a spirit.

But it must be understood that to all cla.s.ses the hallucination has the effect of reality, until, by the exercise of an active will, inquiry proves that both sounds and sights thus noticed are illusions. If, therefore, persons who have visions, &c., have not intellects which are cultivated, the spectres will pa.s.s for realities, and, as such, will be described.

If we endeavour to apply this observation to certain cases, we shall see how far the deductions are _vraisemblable_. Of all the causes which produce atrocious crimes, insanity of mind is the most common. But this cause is rarely recognized at the time, even in a country like our own.

Murder, rape, arson, and a host of other atrocities are often the first evidence of a diseased brain. The doctor is a.s.sured of this long before an ignorant public, and he traces without surprise the course of a malady which is not seen by the vulgar, until its culmination in some better known form of lunacy. These mental sufferers are exactly those to whom visions are most common, and who are most unable to test the reality of their hallucinations. If, then, they are integers of a people to whom insanity is unknown, it is natural that their narratives will be listened to with awe. The j.a.panese tyrant, whose case we have given, was probably brutal from impending brain disease, and the visions which appeared to him were caused by an increase of his malady.

Shakespeare has evidently taken this view of the question, for, in _Macbeth_, he makes that hero (act ii., scene 1), soliloquise with a dagger which he sees, but cannot clutch--"Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling, as to sight, or art thou but a dagger of the mind; a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?" Conscious of the illusion, Macbeth recognizes the probable cause; but, at a later period, when the diseased brain is worse than it was before, the unfortunate man is quite unable to reason, and we find him in act iii., scene 4, affrighted by the ghost of Banquo--whose appearance he believes to be real, even although his wife recalls to his mind the dagger scene, and reasons upon his weakness.

I do not think that we shall be far wrong if we a.s.sume that many nations, who were not far advanced in mental speculation, obtained their first ideas of the resurrection of the body from the hallucinations of approaching or actual insanity. Christian divines unquestionably endeavour to demonstrate the truth of the dogma referred to, by the frequent appearance of Jesus to his disciples after his crucifixion.

But the manifestation of Jesus differed wholly from that of Moses and Elias who once came to talk to him. He takes particular pains to demonstrate to Thomas that he has flesh and blood and a hole in his side, as well as in his hands and feet. This indicates that Jesus did not die upon the cross, but that he fainted and came back to life.

To insist for a moment upon the lessons taught by the narrative in the gospels, let us inquire what is the value of the argument which proves the resurrection of the body, either by the appearance to some one of a departed friend or enemy, or the visits of Jesus to his disciples. If it is demonstrated thus that the body is eternal and will rise again, it is equally certain that its garments, whether cloth, linen, or calico, will be resuscitated also!

The subject, however, is not yet exhausted, for we have now to remark, that no one has ever been known to see a spectre which does not represent some one whom he has seen, or whose picture he has noticed; nor does he ever hear a voice in a tongue unknown to himself.

Consequently, when we find individuals recognizing some one whose portrait they have seen, but who talks in the mother tongue of the visionary, we are forced to conclude that the matter is unreal. If a French girl--or several of them, see the Virgin Mary, and hear her talk French, it is evident to every thinking mind, either that there is mental disorder or priestly craft. In like manner, when individuals, calling themselves "mediums," declare their power to call before them the ghosts of Homer and Hero, Leander and Alexander, and a.s.sert that they can distinguish Plato from Socrates, and Seneca from Xenophon, and can converse with all in pure English, it is clear that such people are not insane, and that their pretended skill has no existence. That which goes by the names of clairvoyance and spiritualism is based solely upon an unreasoning credulity.

In speaking of a belief in "spiritualism" as being a.n.a.logous to implicit credence in ghosts--and both as being founded upon imperfection in judgment, it is right that I should give some reasons for what I say.

More than thirty years have elapsed since I attended my first seance with a clairvoyant. She had then been in Liverpool some time, and not only came to us from America with a wonderful renown, but soon attached to her triumphal car some of the most conspicuous of our local savans.

Having read much upon the subject of Mesmerism--the Od or Odyllic force, animal magnetism, &c., I was desirous of gaining some personal experience, and gladly accepted an invitation to see the lady referred to, at the house of a near relative. There were many present, and before the meeting formally began, I obtained permission to take notes in writing of what pa.s.sed. The first undertaking was that we should be told what two of our number were doing in a dark room below stairs. I was one of the two, and we stood with one hand upon the other's shoulder, and the loose hands were held out horizontally. One leg of each was resting on the tabla The lady reported us as sitting together on a sofa. Her husband explained away the failure by saying that there was a mirror in the room! As there was a looking-gla.s.s in every apartment in the house, my friend and I took our position on the stairs; and on this occasion we lay down at full length heads downwards. The clairvoyant said that we were arm in arm talking. After this second failure, I was asked to take the lady's hand in mine, and think deeply of some place which she would then describe to me.

I must here pause to notice the condition referred to. My mind was to be absorbed in what I required to be described--if I allowed my thoughts to wander, I was told that the woman would be confused, and her performance a failure. This involved the idea that I was not to criticise, as the affair proceeded, but to make one thing "square" with another, if I could. My part was carefully pointed out, but nothing came of it. I then gave a possible clue, which was followed up, and with some surprise I found the woman describe what I was really thinking about. But the repet.i.tion of a phrase struck upon my ear--it was this, "I see a lot of things going back and for'rads," and I found that I had interpreted this as men, women, schoolboys, horses, palisades, trees, cloisters, houses, and coaches!

After my retirement an elderly man grasped the hand, and I with pencil took down the words the woman used, with the intention of asking certain outsiders next day if the terms conveyed to them any distinct idea. I found the favourite sentence referred to came so often, that I merely left for the words a s.p.a.ce with t. b. f., to show where the phrase occurred. There were far more s.p.a.ces in my ma.n.u.script than words. But the old gentleman was satisfied, and so was his son who was present. It had been agreed between them that the clairvoyant was to describe "their house"--both were satisfied that she had; but one was thinking of the town and the other of the country house!

During the talk, the woman, every time she uttered a sentence, said, "Am I right?" and when told that she was wrong, she adroitly changed her statement. Every experiment that night was a failure, and to some of us who were sceptics our host remarked--"How is it that when you expect the most, everything goes wrong?" To this my reply was--"When doubters are present you scan evidence closer than when you are all believers together."

When once I was known as a pyrrhonist, I was invited to see everybody who was regarded by others as extraordinarily perfect in clairvoyance; and was astonished to find out how ignorant the believers were of the laws of evidence.

After a time clairvoyance was replaced by spiritualism, and I was again challenged to test the virtue of mediums. As my avocations wholly prevented my personal attendance, I challenged certain of the faithful to describe my library, saying that I should not be content with being told that there were windows and a door, a fireplace and a chair, a table and an inkstand, &c., but that I had something very peculiar in it, the like of which I had never seen before--if this were described, I should fancy that the spirits knew something. But I added, so long as "spirits" only did things which conjurors, prestidigitateurs, "et hoc genus omne," did, I should decline to believe that spirits were corporeal, and that Grecian statesmen, Latin orators, and Sanscrit theologians were familiar with the English language.

It must be emphatically stated that a man must not attribute everything, of which he knows little, to a power of which he knows less. No one can tell why an ordinary tree grows upwards, whilst a few peculiar ones grow, after a certain period of their life, downwards; and if any one were to declare that the first were influenced by the spirit of an unicorn, and the second by the spirit of a cow's tail, he would be regarded as a fool. Not much wiser would he be, who, when he heard a knock of some kind or other, a.s.serted or believed that it came from the angel of night--the well-known Nox. The untutored savage, when first he sees a watch, cannot tell how it goes--if he says that he is ignorant, we may respect him; but if he declares that a spirit moves it, we despise his credulity. The polite circles of civilized cities who attribute the absurd capers of tambourines, concertinas, tables, and the like to the vivacity of the ghosts of defunct philosophers, and who think that it requires the shade of Venus to tell us, that feminine women are more graceful than masculine hoydens, are not much superior to the natural savage.

These remarks may be supplemented by the experiences imparted to me by several personal friends; for, as it seems to me, each one has his own way in looking at things, and has, so to speak, an idiosyncrasy in belief and scepticism. One man, for example, inquires "How is it that if I propound to a spiritualist, to an artist with 'planchette,' or any other person who professes clairvoyance--a question, through a friend who does not know the answer, I never get a correct reply; but if I propound the same question the response is always right?" In this case it is clear that the inquirer answers himself--not wittingly, it is true; but, by means of a slight hesitation under certain circ.u.mstances, he gives to the adroit professor the needful clue. How far this is true has been repeatedly proved by those who have made the spirits say anything--"Where is my sister?" such an one asks, and by the alphabet and raps he hears that she is in Munich; but as the inquirer never had a sister, the spirits have clearly been duped.

One of my friends, ordinarily a thorough sceptic, was converted to the belief that one of his hands was positively and the other negatively magnetic, and he showed me how he turned, by their means, a book suspended between us upon a door key finely tied within the leaves.

But when I showed him that this was done by a movement of the body, and could not be done if both hands employed were fixed upon anything--he was convinced that what seemed due to one thing depended, in reality, upon another. Yet that man was an acute and able chemical a.n.a.lyst.

How the late Dr Faraday convinced "table turners" that they did, unconsciously, that which they wished, but determined not to do, will long be remembered as a marvel of philosophical induction. We all have not the faculty of a.n.a.lyzing evidence, and it would be well if those who are deficient in that power would be less bigoted than they are. We can scarcely expect it, however, for ignorance and arrogance usually walk together; and no man is more convinced of his knowledge than the one who takes it at second hand, and believes what he is told. The faithful swallow "squid," and become a ma.s.s of blubber; the sceptics feed on solid flesh, and are thin as tigers.

CHAPTER XI.

Reconstructive. Faith and reason. Result of previous investigations. Value of morality. Morality and Romanism.

Vice encouraged by priests--end in view. Submission to priests more valuable than virtue. Vice better than scepticism. Theological false witness. Compulsory faith.

Supply without demand--in theology. Correctness of doctrine proved by the sword. Church and state in modern times.

"Nerve" required to change a belief. Moral courage. What is faith? Absurd definition given by Paul. Faith must be uncompromising. Why faith signifies blind confidence. Faith and folly go hand in hand. Faith makes fools. Jesuits and faith. Popery and faith. Faith persecutes reason. All religious teachers uphold faith--the reason why. Quiet after activity. The one who partly abjures faith resembles a mariner at sea. Faith and reason incompatible. The author's personal belief: Negative--positive. Opinions on various received dogmas. Laws of Nature. Providence. The Book of G.o.d in the universe. Sin--the ideas connected with children and whelps. Human and animal instincts. Religious laws against G.o.d's. Pious murder. When crimes are praiseworthy. Human laws and ecclesiastical. Effect on common law of priestly legislation. Ecclesiastical laws generally bad ones. The Church makes sins; so does society. A case supposed. Society contravenes the laws of Nature. The proper basis of legislation. Personal impressions. Duty the guide of conduct. Conclusions.

Importance of them. Reason gives peace of mind. Fears of the orthodox.

Reason may regenerate the world; Faith does not. Another way of treating the subject Mr Gladstone upon education. Opposes "dread of results" to "desire of learning." Gladstone and Strauss. Various oracles. Oxford graduates rarely philosophic. Lord Bacon's aphorisms. Science obstructed by human weaknesses. Progress of science barred by ecclesiastics.

Religion and despotism. The man who scouts induction is a bigot.

Revelation requires exposition. Three sets of expounders--all differ.

Which must the faithful follow? Popish miracles claim credence from the faithful. He who argues must be logical. Can a bigot be a liberal? If learning is valuable, it must have free scope. Choice proposed--faith or reason? Men of mark who shun religious inquiry. Faraday and Gladstone.