Uncle Tom and the little Eva with Him whose love knows no distinction of colour; who welcomes both alike to His feet, and in whom "all the families of the earth are to be blessed; " who came to open "the prison doors to them that are bound;" and even where He does not do that literally, yet can enfranchise degraded humanity with a freedom so much more glorious, that it must make the cheek of every conscientious Christian tingle to think that any inferior freedom should be withheld? Let our philanthropic Deists write a book which, freely resorting to their sources of interest to the abstract rights of man-shall produce half the same effect which this does by combining with all such topics (which are equally those of both parties) the nobler sentiments which Christian philanthropy alone can inspire.

And now as to the "early progress of Christianity." Mr. Newman had represented the Christians, previous to the age of Constantine, as a "small fraction;" and yet declared that it was the Christian soldiers of Constantine who conquered the empire for Christianity." If all the Christians in the empire were but a small fraction, those in the army considering that it was not a very likely place for the primitive Christians to harbour in -must have been a very small fraction of " a small fraction;" and the question returns, how it came to pass that a small fraction of a "small fraction" managed to conquer the colossal strength of a hostile or indifferent empire for Christianity.

Mr. Newman, omitting this part of the subject — it was as well omitted-affirms, as usual, that I have misrepresented him, and thus he endeavours to show it: --"The Author of The Eclipse of Faith' has derided me for despatching, in two paragraphs, what occupied

Gibbon's whole fifteenth chapter; but this Author, here as always, misrepresents me. Gibbon is exhibiting and developing the deep-seated causes of the spread of Christianity before Constantine; and he by no means exhausts the subject. I am comparing the ostensible and notorious facts concerning the outward conquest of Christianity with those of other religions.'

I consider that in this very paragraph, Mr. Newman distinctly shows that I have not misrepresented him; nor is it true that I have overlooked his novel hypothesis. He says that "Gibbon is exhibiting and developing the deep-seated causes of the spread of Christianity before Constantine"-which Mr. Newman says had not spread! On the contrary, he assumes that the Christians were a "small fraction," and thus does dismiss in two sentences, I might have said three words, what Gibbon had strained every nerve in his celebrated chapter to account for. As to Gibbon's not "exhausting" the subject, I have here the happiness of entirely agreeing for once with Mr. Newman; though, if Mr. Newman's view of the early condition of Christianity be correct, I should have thought he would more likely have said that Gibbon more than exhausts it.

In relation to Mr. Newman's hypothesis, the question still returns, supposing the Christians in the time of Constantine a small fraction, and the soldiers a small fraction of that, -how Constantine came to be fool enough to endanger his cause by implicating it with their own, and they heroes enough to conquer the empire for him and themselves; especially since Julian would undoubtedly have liked to reverse the trick, and very signally failed?

Mr. Newman has added a little and altered a little in

Phases, p. 101.

his statements on this subject in his present Edition, but, as in so many other cases, manages to assume what ought to be proved. He says, after repeating that the Christians were but a small fraction of the empire, that "Christianity was adopted as a state religion because of the great political power accruing from the organisation of the churches, and the devotion of Christians to their ecclesiastical citizenship." If they had not been a small fraction, we should still, of course, have demanded something more than this free and easy way of disposing of this matter; for the bare assertion of such a critic as Mr. Newman will hardly pass without proof; as also, how it was that such organisation as the primitive Churches could be so obviously suited to political and military purposes. But, since they were a "small fraction" of the empire, it is still less obvious how a great political power could suddenly "accrue from their Church organisation.

In the same passage, Mr. Newman says, "the bravery and faithful attachment of Christian regiments" — who would not have thought that it was one of Constantine's aides-de-camp that was speaking?" was a lesson not lost on Constantine;" but how there came to be "Christian regiments,” when all the Christians in the empire were "a small fraction," and the camp about the last place wherein to seek them, is, as before, the main question.

SECTION XIV.

SOME MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS.

66

NOT to omit any thing, however incidental, which Mr. Newman has said in reply to "The Eclipse," I will make a remark or two on a note* in which he evidently refers to the work, though he does not name it. Mr. Newman had admitted in his "Phases" the " very complete establishment which Paley's 'Hora Pauline' gives to the narrative concerning Paul in the latter half” of the "Acts," and which appeared to him "to reflect critical honour on the whole New Testament." The author of "The Eclipse of Faith" says ("Dilemmas of an Infidel Neophyte "), that on renouncing Christianity Mr. Newman does not attempt to account for this, he surely ought." Mr. Newman cannot see that he has to account for any thing! He says in his recent edition, "A critic absurdly complains that I do not account for this." I do not "absurdly" complain that he does not account for it, because I am perfectly well aware that it is impossible for him to do so. But I, not absurdly, complain that, admitting the facts, he does not attempt to account for them. He says, "Account for what? I still hold the authenticity of nearly all the Pauline Epistles, and that the Pauline Acts "—we see how fine his criticism can cut, but no reasons given, –

66

as

are compiled from some valuable source from chap. xii. onward; but it was gratuitous to infer that

* Phases, p. 14.

this could accredit the Four Gospels."

Precipitate

again. It is "gratuitous" of him to suppose that I was saying "that the coincidences could accredit the Four Gospels," though I think they will indirectly go a great way towards that; but it does not follow that, if they do not accredit the Four Gospels, there is not still something to be accounted for. Supposing, as this admission does, the Pauline Epistles to have been written under the circumstances related in the "Acts," it is natural that he who rejects Christianity should seek to give some plausible account at least, of the ready reception of Paul's extraordinary pretensions in so many widely different communities; - an explanation especially, not simply of his preternatural claims, but of such a prompt submission to them;-to let us know whether he was a fanatic or an impostor;-how if the latter, he managed to hoodwink the people, and how if the former, they managed to hoodwink themselves? How it was that they contrived to surrender at so early a period, and in so many distant places, their various national and local prejudices in favour of these novel and (if false) not very attractive extravagancies? I rather think that most people will think there is something to be accounted for, if a man admits what Mr. Newman admits, and yet rejects the miraculous origin of the Gospel. In the meantime, and since Mr. Newman thinks any inference in favour of Christianity from such a source so precarious, I recommend him to do what Johnson said had never been done nor was likely to be done,-refute Lord Lyttleton's argument for Christianity from the life and labours of Paul, or the inferences which Paley so forcibly draws at the close of the" Hore Paulinæ," from the historical facts there established, to the preternatural origin of Christianity.