SIR,—May I say how much I appreciated Canon Raven's article,
" Criticism and Faith," in your issue of March 28th. "That conspiracy of silence which still closes the pulpits to any discussion of Biblical criticism" is absolutely true. Even in The Times, which I have read pretty regularly for the last 30 years, it was not until December, 1945, that the "Correspondent " of the Saturday religious article had the courage to state plainly "the words of the Scriptures must not be taken literally." It is the " Fundamentalists " who are at the back of English and American sympathy with the Jewish demand for Palestine, and it is the extreme Anglo-Catholics who draw down the "black curtain" of silence at the mention of any Biblical criticism. Is it to be wandered at that there has been a world-wide decay of religion when difficulties are avoided and
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