What Constitutes a Critic?
By James Gray
SOME time ago a Washington music critic sang in opera to prove that she knew her business, and of course made a failure of it. But, as a secular daily asked, does that prove that she is not a critic? Nay, tho every singer and every actor who has felt the lash of her criticism should say so. Must one be a cook to know whether a dinner is well prepared? Must he understand how to build a ship before he is fitted to say whether she sails well? Does only a watchmaker know whether a watch keeps good time? No more is it necessary for intelligent and converted men and women, with the Bible in their hands and the history of the world before them, to become professors in our universities, or even graduates thereof, before they are able to determine for themselves whether that Bible is the Word of God, and whether the evidence, moral and historical, is sufficient to determine it.—James Gray, D.D.