Untitled - Electric Scotland

476 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. xvn.
dispute. If he refused to join his brethren, for example,
in inhibiting Bishop Colenso, and retained his friendship
for the writers of Essays and Reviews, he was not for
that reason a whit the less emphatic in enunciating his
own positive opinions upon the Divine authority of Holy
Scripture.
It would certainly have been easier for him, in
the heat of a conflict which cost him so much, and which
exposed him, as we have seen, to a double fire, to have
avoided any special utterance of a doctrinal sort upon the
difficult subject which was setting men at variance. Such
silence would have been ^asy to defend. But he took the
opposite line. Besides referring to the subject
length in two Diocesan Charges, he published
at full
in those
years three separate volumes of sermons dealing specially
with the question of the Inspiration of Holy Scripture.
In the preface to the first of these, which contained a
reprint of addresses delivered at Oxford fifteen years
before, he makes this reference to the personal experiences
of his life :
"
It may seem unlikely in these changing days that what was
written for 1846 can be suitable for 1861. Most men change
or greatly modify their opinions and sentiments in fifteen years.
The rude test of experiment is continually making shipwreck of
many skilfully constructed theories ; and even he whose views of
religion and society are from the bent of his mind most practical,
continually finds, as life goes on, that there is something unreal
in his opinions, which requires, if not to be given up, at least to
be carefully revised and altered. The trials of life greatly affect
our mental vision : rightly used, they make us more sympathising,
more considerate, more tolerant ; but they also more deeply con
vince us of the priceless value of truths which have been our
soul s only stay in terrible emergencies. Few mortals pass any
great length of time without sickness and sorrow, and if a man has
looked death in the face, or, while well in his own bodily health,
has been stunned in mind by seeing fond hopes vanish, he will
naturally cling with a firmer tenacity to the great religious truths
which bore him up when all else failed, and will be more jealous