acclamation, and have confidently declared that we are looking on the
promised land. But to the more thoughtful, and to the less impulsive, it
is plain that a mist hangs over it, and that we have no right to be
sure whether it is the promised land or no. They see grave reasons for
making a closer scrutiny, and for asking if, when the mist lifts, what
we see will be not splendour, but desolation.

Such, in brief outline, is the question we are to deal with. We will now
go on to approach it in a more detailed way.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Vide Sophocles, _OEdipus Coloneus_.

[2] Professor Clifford, whose study of history leads him to regard
Catholicism as nothing more than an 'episode' in the history of Western
progress.

[3] Mr. Frederic Harrison.

[4] Mr. Froude, _History of England_, chap. i.

[5] Wordsworth.

[6] Quoted by Dr. Tyndall from Professor Blackie.

[7] George Eliot.