If
he can pursue advanced research in an allied or applied field, it will
help him in his regular and prescribed work. We do not cast an English
professor out of his chair, because he announces that there are two
manuscripts of Layamon's _Brut_, and that the text of Beowulf has been
many times worked over, before we have received it in its present form.
Yet there are accredited professors of English who do not know these
facts, and who, if called upon, could neither prove them nor disprove
them. They have not worked in the Bodleian, in the British Museum, or in
other foreign libraries, on Old English texts and authorities. They
think themselves well up in Old English if they can translate the text
of Beowulf fairly well, remember its most difficult vocabulary, and can
tell a tale or two from the _Brut_.
Not every man has Europe or Asia in his backyard, nor a lifetime of
leisure for research, for special learning, on the moot questions of
church-scholarship. Progress consists in each man's doing his best to
advance the interests of the kingdom of God in his own special sphere.
From others he must take something for granted.
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