Show Bible Criticism and Thomas Paine A letter has been received from a friend who describes a striking scene in a recent Baptist Congress in Detroit I ought to have covered the Higher Critics with shame and confusion but unhappily they are like the Higher Critics of old who made their hearts as an adamant of stone lest they should hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent by His Spirit by the hand of the former for-mer prophets Zech vii 12 President Harper and President Andrews An-drews of Brown Univerclty with others had been advocating the methods of modern mod-ern Higher Criticism and saying that the last twentyseven chapters of Isaiah were written by some other man when Prof Howard Osgood of Rochester arose to reply He spoke briefly completely answered an-swered the Higher Critics and then said I have here an article written almost exactly one hundred years ago I will read It and then tell you the name of the author He read a criticism on the Bible and especially on Isaiah advocating a double authorship of the latter in almost exactly the language of Harper and his friends He made a few comments upon the clearness of the ideas of the author I and showed his teachings to b identical with modern Higher Criticism He then Crtcsm exclaimed after a long pause The author of this paper was Thomas Paine The effect was wonderful There was a look of surprise on the faces of the critics and then as the applause rang out they looked as though they would like to escape es-cape It was carefully kept out of the papers for some reasonThe Truth N Y |