The Christian world seethed not only with apocryphal writings, but with hostile interpretations of writings not apocryphal. - John Tyndall

When arguments or proofs were needed, whether on the side of the Jewish Christians or of the Gentile Christians, a document was discovered which met the case, and on which the name of an apostle, or of some authoritative contemporary of the apostles, was boldly inscribed. The end being held to sanctify the means, there was no lack of manufactured testimony.

[O]f the future form of religion little can be predicted. Its main concern may possibly be to purify, elevate, and brighten the life that now is, instead of treating it as the more or less dismal vestibule of a life that is to come.

The logical feebleness of science is not sufficiently borne in mind. It keeps down the weed of superstition, not by logic but by slowly rendering the mental soil unfit for its cultivation.