as those of many others, have been incorporated by Strauss. He had,
as he elegantly expresses it, 'cut out such a piece of work for the
Boylean lectures as should hold them tug as long as the ministry of
the letter should last'; for he too, you see, masked his infidelity
by a distinction between the 'letter' and the 'spirit,' though he
applied the convenient terms in a totally different sense. Poor soul!
The fundamental principles of his infidelity are surrendered by
Strauss himself. Similarly, a score of assailants of the Bible have
appeared and vanished since his day; each proclaiming, just as he
himself went to the bottom, that he had given the Bible its death-blow!
Somehow, however, that singular book continues to flourish, to
Propagate itself, to speak all languages, to intermingle more and
more with the literature of all civilized nations; while mankind
will not accept, slaves as they are, the intellectual freedom you
offer them. It is really very provoking; of what use is it to destroy
the Bible so often, when it lives the next minute? I have little doubt
your new attempts will end just like the labors of the Rationalists
of the Paulus school, so graphically described by the German writer
whom I have already referred to. 'It is sad, no doubt,' says he, or
something to the same effect, 'that, after fifty years' exegetical
grubbing, weeding, and pruning at 'the mighty primitive forest of
the Bible, the next generation should persist in saying that the
Rationalist had destroyed the forest only in his own addled
imagination, and that it is just as it was.'"

"Yes; but the new weapons will not be so easily evaded as those
of a past age."

"Will they not? We shall see. You must not prophesy; in that,
you know, you do not believe."