In his use of helps and commentaries he had a profound contempt of those peddlers of pedantry who try to make the words of eternal truth become merely the lingo of things local and temporary. He was fond of utilizing all that the spade has cast up and out from the earth, as well as of consulting what the pen of genius has made so plain. He believed heartily in that interpretive, or higher criticism, which has done so much in our days to open the riches of holy Scripture. From the very first, instead of fearing that truth might be injured by an examination of the dress in which it was clothed, or the packages in which it was wrapped, Carleton was in hearty sympathy with those scholars and investigators who, by the application of literary canons to the Hebrew and Greek writings, have put illuminating difference between traditions and the original message. He believed that, in the popular understanding of many portions of the Bible, there was much confusion, owing to the webs which have been spun over the text by men who lived centuries and ages after the original writers of the inspired word. Though he never called himself a scholar, he knew only too well that Flavius Josephus and John Milton were the makers of much popular tradition which ascribed to the Bible a good deal which it does not contain, and that there was often difficulty among the plain people in distinguishing between the ancient treasure and the wrapping and strings within which it is now enclosed. Hence his diligent use of some of the strong books in his pastor's and other libraries. Above all, however, was his own clear, penetrating, spiritual insight, which, joined with his rich experience, his literary instincts, and his own gift of expression, made him such a master in the art of communication. While his first use of the Bible was for spiritual benefit to himself and others, he held that its study as literature would scatter to the wind the serious objections of sceptics and unbelievers. CHAPTER XXIV. THE FREE CHURCHMAN.