the writer undertakes to defend himself against my advocate, in on Appendix of 19 closely printed pages, the “Defence” itself being 218.  The “Eclipse,” in its 9th edition of small print, is 393 pages.  And how does he set about his reply?  By trying to identify the third writer with the second (who was notoriously Mr. Martineau), and to impute to him ill temper, chagrin, irritation, and wounded self-love, as the explanation of this third article:  He says (p. 221):—­

“The third writer—­if, as I have said, he be not the second—­sets out on a new voyage of discovery ... and still humbly following in the wake of Mr. Newman’s great critical discoveries,[3] repeats that gentleman’s charges of falsifying passages, garbling and misrepresentation.  In doing so, he employs language, and manifests a temper, which I should have thought that respect for himself, if not for his opponent, would have induced him to suppress.  It is enough to say, that he quite rivals Mr. Newman in sagacity, and if possible, has more successfully denuded himself of charity....  If he be the same as the second writer, I am afraid that the little Section XV.” [i.e. the reply to Mr. Martineau in 1st edition of the “Defence”] “must have offended the amour propre more deeply than it ought to have done, considering the wanton and outrageous assault to which it was a very lenient reply, and that the critic affords another illustration of the old maxim, that there are none so implacable as those who have done a wrong.

“As the spectacle of the reeling Helot taught the Spartans sobriety, so his bitterness shall teach me moderation.  I know enough of human nature to understand that it is very possible for an angry man—­and chagrin and irritation are too legibly written on every page of this article—­to be betrayed into gross injustice.”

The reader will see from this the difficulty of my position in this controversy.  Mr. Martineau, while defending himself, deprecated the profanity of my other opponent, and the atheistic nature of his arguments.  He spoke as a bystander, and with the advantage of a judicial position, and it is called “wanton and outrageous.”  A second writer goes into detail, and exposes some of the garbling arts which have been used against me; it is imputed[4] to ill temper, and is insinuated to be from a spirit of personal revenge.  How much less can I defend myself, and that, against untruthfulness, without incurring such imputation!  My opponent speaks to a public who will not read my replies.  He picks out what he pleases of my words, and takes care to divest them of their justification.  I have (as was to be expected) met with much treatment from the religious press which I know cannot be justified; but all is slight, compared to that of which I complain from this writer.  I will presently give a few detailed instances to illustrate this.  While my charge against my assailant is essentially moral,