The rapid spread of heresy throughout the churches is creating genuine dismay in many quarters. When such ripe scholars and representative thinkers as Rev. Heber Newton, Dr. C. A. Briggs, and Rev. Dr. Bridgman, representing three of the most powerful Protestant communions, freely preach doctrines at variance with conventional orthodox views, and express a grander hope and broader faith than that cherished by conservative theologians, it is by no means strange that the current of old-time thought should be stirred. If, however, these scholarly minds stood alone in their convictions, there would be no warrant for such widespread apprehension as is manifest. The serious character of the present theological revolution, however, lies in the fact that the pulpit and the people are honey-combed with the peculiar heresy which rejects the verbal inspiration of the Bible and the dogma of eternal damnation.[9] The general uneasiness occasioned by the present epidemic of heresy, and the bitter strictures which it has called forth, are perfectly natural, while it is equally true that the present liberal attitude of so many of the foremost thinkers in the various orthodox churches is the legitimate outcome of numerous agencies which have been silently working for generations. [9] The _United Presbyterian_ in a recent issue says, "It appears that Dr. Briggs does not stand alone in the theological seminaries of the Presbyterian Church as a teacher of dangerous views of inspiration. Four of the professors of Lane Seminary have declared themselves as equally radical." The _Interior_ says, "The paper of Prof. Smith, of Lane, published in a pamphlet with that of Prof. Evans, goes much beyond anything that has appeared on the subject from Presbyterian authorship in this country." At the meeting of the Alumni of the Union Theological Seminary, on the eighteenth of May, the newly elected professor of systematic theology, the brilliant Rev. Henry J. Van Dyke, D. D. (since deceased) made the following bold remark while defending Dr. Briggs: "_If we cannot have orthodoxy and liberty, let orthodoxy go and let us have liberty. Liberty has always produced progress._" In his sermon on May the 24th, Rev. Thomas Dixon, one of the Baptist clergymen of New York City, said: The heresy trial is a record of barbarism, a relic of savagery. It belongs to the crudeness, and ignorance, and superstition of barbaric times. It smells of roasting flesh.