But, if any one will do me the favour to turn to the paper in which these passages occur, he will find that a considerable part of it is devoted to the exposure of the familiar trick of the “counsel for creeds,” who, when they wish to profit by the easily stirred odium theologicum, are careful to confuse disbelief in a narrative of a man’s act, or disapproval of the acts as narrated, with disbelieving and vilipending the man himself.  If I say that “according to paragraphs in several newspapers, my valued Separatist friend A.B. has houghed a lot of cattle, which he considered to be unlawfully in the possession of an Irish land-grabber; that, in my opinion, any such act is a misdemeanour of evil example; but, that I utterly disbelieve the whole story and have no doubt that it is a mere fabrication:”  it really appears to me that, if any one charges me with calling A.B. an immoral misdemeanant I should be justified in using very strong language respecting either his sanity or his veracity.  And, if an analogous charge has been brought in reference to the Gadarene story, there is certainly no excuse producible, on account of any lack of plain speech on my part.  Surely no language can be more explicit than that which follows: 

“I can discern no escape from this dilemma; either Jesus said what he is reported to have said, or he did not.  In the former case, it is inevitable that his authority on matters connected with the ’unseen world’ should be roughly shaken; in the latter, the blow falls upon the authority of the synoptic Gospels” (p. 173).  “The choice then lies between discrediting those who compiled the Gospel biographies and disbelieving the Master, whom they, simple souls, thought to honour by preserving such traditions of the exercise of his authority over Satan’s invisible world” (p. 174).  And I leave no shadow of doubt as to my own choice:  “After what has been said, I do not think that any sensible man, unless he happen to be angry, will accuse me of ‘contradicting the Lord and his Apostles’ if I reiterate my total disbelief in the whole Gadarene story” (p. 178).

I am afraid, therefore, that Mr. Gladstone must have been exceedingly angry when he committed himself to such a statement as follows: 

So, then, after eighteen centuries of worship offered to our Lord by the most cultivated, the most developed, and the most progressive portion of the human race, it has been reserved to a scientific inquirer to discover that He was no better than a law-breaker and an evil-doer....  How, in such a matter, came the honours of originality to be reserved to our time and to Professor Huxley? (Pp. 269, 270.)

Truly, the hatchet is hardly a weapon of precision, but would seem to have rather more the character of the boomerang, which returns to damage the reckless thrower.  Doubtless such incidents are somewhat ludicrous.  But they have a very serious side; and, if I rated the opinion of those who blindly follow Mr. Gladstone’s leading, but not light, in these matters, much higher than the great Duke of Wellington’s famous standard of minimum value, I think I might fairly beg them to reflect upon the general bearings of this particular example of his controversial method.  I imagine it can hardly commend itself to their cool judgment.