THE "EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY." f'ro THE EDITOR Or THE
"SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Your review of last week on Canon Farrar's "Early Days of Christianity" complains that, "It is impossible for one who has written so much, in so short a time, to think deeply, or to reason with precision and accuracy. Within a period of six years, Dr. Farrar has written a 'Life of Christ,' in two largo volumes ; a Life of St. Paul,' in two large volumes ; and a history of the 'Early Days of Christianity,' in two large volumes ; besides a bulky volume on Eschatology,' and sundry essays in the periodical literature of the day." Later on, the review says:—" Dr. Farrar is so set on producing a striking effect, or establishing some point in controversy, that he cannot be trusted in dealing with facts."' Allow me, as an old. friend of Dr. Farrar, to call attention to two instances in which the reviewer himself deals with facts. 1. Dr. Farrar's "Life of Christ" was published in 1874, that is, eight years ago. In the preface, he says, very modestly,—" could not at first but shrink from a labour for which I felt that the amplest leisure of a lifetime would be insufficient, and powers incomparably greater than my own would still be utterly inadequate After I had in some small measure prepared myself for the task, I seized, in the year 1870, the earliest possible opportunity to visit Palestine," &c.
The six years, therefore, allowed by your reviewer for the writing Da Farrar's seven volumes must be extended to at least twelve,—an extension which, while it still leaves ample room for wonder that so many conquests should lie so thick together, removes, surely, not a little of the force which seemed to attach to the reviewer's trenchant words. Six years are clearly one thing, twelve years, another.—I am, Sir, &c., Anxious.
[We have not thought it right to publish the latter part of our correspondent's letter, as it simply amounts to a criticism on a criticism ; and. to these, if we were to sanction the habit of admitting them, there would be no end. Of coarse, we did not intend to include in our statement the time of preparation, but only the time that had elapsed between the two publica- tions. Our error arose from the date in " Crockford's Clergy List," which gives 1876 as the date of publication of "The Life of Christ." On referring again to the volume, we presume that the date given is the date of the twenty-fourth edition, but we should not have inferred this from the manner in which the date 1876 is given. However, the longer the study devoted. by Dr. Farrar to his books, the more carefully should he have retrenched. and corrected their many excrescences.—En. Spectator.]
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