it takes is not controverted. But the lawyer says it does not meet the question, that is, we presume, the question as it is in his mind, though he had not previously expressed it. He says:

“The note given me does not meet the question. It is claimed that the church is infallible because a divine institution—that is, because established by God.

“Now, admit it to be a divine institution, if it is to be presented for our acceptance, it must be for the acceptance of our fallible reason.

“For example, when the missionary carries the church to the heathen, does he not present it for their rational acceptance? And if so, does he not ask their finite judgment to pass upon and accept the infinite and the absolute?

“Now, the point is this: if the thing or truth presented be infinite and absolute, and the person to whom it is presented be imperfect, fallible, and conditioned, how can the truth—or the church, if you please—appear otherwise to him than according to his finite and partial interpretation of it?

“The question in respect to the absolute is, not whether it be really true and absolute or not, but to what extent does the normal affirmation go respecting it. In short, must not the same argument obtain against the church as against the Bible?

“It comes to the question of authority; and, if all intelligent authority resides in the person (and certainly each one must, from the nature of his constitution, be his own authority), then it follows that no authority whatever can reside in the state, the church, or in any mere institution or being outside of the person, whether that church or institution assume divinity or not.

“The authority is not in the so-called fact, but in the person to whom the so-called fact is presented, and who is called upon to pass upon it.

“The Baconian system is false, because it makes the so-called fact the authority for itself; when plainly the very existence or comprehension of the so-called fact depends wholly on the person to whom it is presented.”

The objection is, apparently, the objection we ourselves bring to the