or on heaven like Mohammed, or stop discoursing on them at all; it
would be a sign of apostasy.

Now the modernists' criterion of probability in history or of
worthiness in philosophy is not the Christian criterion. It is that of
their contemporaries outside the church, who are rationalists in
history and egotists or voluntarists in philosophy. The biblical
criticism and mystical speculations of the modernists call for no
special remark; they are such as any studious or spiritual person,
with no inherited religion, might compose in our day. But what is
remarkable and well-nigh incredible is that even for a moment they
should have supposed this non-Christian criterion in history and this
non-Christian direction in metaphysics compatible with adherence to
the Catholic church. That seems to presuppose, in men who in fact are
particularly thoughtful and learned, an inexplicable ignorance of
history, of theology, and of the world.

Everything, however, has its explanation. In a Catholic seminary, as
the modernists bitterly complain, very little is heard of the views
held in the learned world outside. It is not taught there that the
Christian religion is only one of many, some of them older and
superior to it in certain respects; that it itself is eclectic and
contains inward contradictions; that it is and always has been divided
into rancorous sects; that its position in the world is precarious and
its future hopeless. On the contrary, everything is so presented as to
persuade the innocent student that all that is good or true anywhere
is founded on the faith he is preparing to preach, that the historical
evidences of its truth are irrefragable, that it is logically perfect
and spiritually all-sufficing. These convictions, which no breath from
the outside is allowed to ruffle, are deepened in the case of pensive