EASTER
Sut,—The Rev. Austin Lee says in your issue of April 17 that he does not understand Mr. Hollis's letter perfectly, but so far as he does he considers 'it unworthy of him. In my opinion, if I dare say so, Mr. Lee's second letter is unworthy of himself as revealed in his own first letter published on April 3. In it he said (and here spoke non-popular, in- formed, scholarly and conscientious Christianity too little heard in public controversy) that the Gospels were not histories and spoke of the accounts of the Resurrection as symbolic representations of a meta- physical concept of immortality. In his second letter, however, he says he never denied the 'historicity' of the Resurrection and dubs Mr. Hollis's belief a 'crudely materialist interpretation' This, surely, is logomachy with the lid off. Either Mr. Hollis, leaning on the testimony of that great man and great zealot St. Paul, is right and the order of nature was violated, or Mr. Lee (and modern rationalist humanism) is right and the Resurrection is not historical fact but fervour-bred myth and symbol. Mr. Lee is in rather an unfortunate position, because if he wins it is a Pyrrhic victory and he is left rather like a man whose umbrella has blown inside out in a storm but who yet maintains he is not getting wet.—Yours faith- fully,
GEORGE RICHARDS
Blenheim, Mount Pleasant Road, Poole
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