moral judgments" would justify, for the sake of that effort which the critic has made, (though, as I think, on most precarious grounds, and from a most imperfect point of view,) to defend the moral excellence and perfection of Him who is worthy of all love and veneration. The critic's conclusion, indeed, may surprise us, but still he arrives at it. He abandons seemingly all that is preternatural in Christianity - he reduces most of its history, all its miraculous history, to a caput mortuum of myth and fable- he leaves us in utter doubt how many or how few of its facts we are to credit or reject - he believes that the "Messiah" himself was mistaken in his own Messiahship—he fancies that he knows more of Christianity, while he denies the integrity of the only records which inform us about it, than the Apostles themselves; -in all this he fights his battle under grave disadvantages, and, in fact, reposes his belief in the "moral perfection of Christ" solely on an irresistible feeling. Apart from that feeling (for which I yet cannot but honour him), he seems to vault upon air, or upon a rope so thin, that he seems to a spectator to do so; and as he trips about in the spangled dress of his somewhat too glittering rhetoric, it is impossible to restrain the fear lest he and his thesis should together tumble to the ground. Still he has defended the thesis; he avows that he sees, as he looks on the face of Christ, the moral glory and grandeur which beam from thence, and has endeavoured to shelter Him from the rude attack which the author of the "Phases" has ventured to make upon Him. For that I will so far honour him, as to give him free leave to vent what suspicions he will of "my possible Atheism," or my "equivocal good faith." If He, whom he strives on this occasion to defend, said that He would remember the most trivial act of kindness to the "least of N those" whom He deigns to call "His brethren;" surely His disciples may well forgive even a greater wrong to one who is endeavouring, though I sincerely believe most inadequately, to defend His cause. I trust that this may convince the author of the critique, that “ The Eclipse of Faith" does not come from the "Atheist's workshop," or from one who writes with "bad faith." Or, if he still doubts it, and will attempt to justify his suspicion, I pledge myself to examine whether his view or mine most naturally leads to religious scepticism; also, whether it may not be possible to give his logic a little more exercise in showing how, with his premises, he knows anything certain about Christ at all, or why His perfection as well as His miracles may not be a mere myth -than Mr. Newman has done by so feebly assailing the moral delineation of Him. I promise, however, that I will not charge my critic as he charges me, with "hastening with utmost glee to poison the fountains of natural piety, and relishing the sorrows of the believers, whose dreams he strives to dissipate!” Such imputations should be left to those who have reached a downright, coarse, unmitigated Deism, and have snapped the last link which binds them in reverence to the moral loveliness he celebrates. Nay, I may even say they should be left to those who wield a less graceful pen than his; for good taste condemns them not less than good feeling. SECTION XVI. CONCLUSION. AT length, I have done with Mr. Newman; but I cannot resist the present opportunity of saying a few words to my young Christian contemporaries on what I deem the true position of the chief arguments on which they are generally invited to surrender their faith, as compared with those which support it; and on what, before surrendering it, they have a right to demand from those who seek to snatch that Faith from them. At last, after much discussion in this and preceding ages, the world, I think and hope, is beginning to comprehend that it is not sufficient to discredit Christianity, or indeed any other system, to propound plausible or even insoluble objections; since it is a sort of weapon by which Atheism, Pantheism, and the half score systems of Deism may be alike easily foiled. And if there is any theory of religion, which is not in the same predicament as Christianity; nay, which is not exposed to yet greater objections, I shall be glad to be informed of it. I can only say, it is a perfect novelty to me. Certainly it is not any of the theories of Deism, the pleasant varieties of which have sprung out of the very eagerness with which the advocates of each have sought to evade the difficulties which press the abettors of every other. Encompassed on all sides by impassable barriers, in whatever direction we speculate- and in none by loftier or more solid wall of rock than in metaphysical or moral philosophy, we are not called upon to answer - every objection which may be made to our tenets-for that is impossible, whatever the hypothesis that may be adopted: the only real question is, on which side the greatest weight of positive evidence is found, and the least weight of opposing objections.* Christians believe that precisely one and the same principle applies both to the works and to the word of God. In the former, every phenomenon proves His power-most of them His wisdom; and the more, the more they are examined. The vast preponderance of them also, both in the world of outward nature and in the internal world of consciousness, proclaim His goodness. The Christian believes, therefore, that He has all these attributes; — the last happily confirmed to him by what he deems an express and authoritative revelation, which perhaps could alone, amidst the conflicting facts of God's present administration, prove to man's tottering reason and feeble faith, that the Divine Goodness is Perfect and Infinite. But, while on the above preponderance of evidence the Christian receives these cardinal truths, he also sees in the present condition and the entire administration of this lower world much that is utterly incomprehensible; many things that God does, still more that He permits to be done, which he cannot harmonise with man's "little wisdom,” and “ little love;" though he believes they can be harmonised. He dares not make his judgment the measure of all that God can do in the rightful exercise of those infinite attributes of rectitude, wisdom, and benevolence, which on independent, and, as he believes, irrefragable grounds, he ascribes to Him. The only answer that can in our present state-nay, perhaps in any state-be given to some * See a striking admission of Hume (an unexceptionable witness here), and some admirable cautions of the sagacious Locke, in Appendix, No. VIII. questions which the finite may ask of the Infinite, is that with which God Himself, when He "spake out of the whirlwind" to the patriarch, rebuked and silenced at once every mutter of discontent with which human pride and folly ventured toj arraign Divine Wisdom and Beneficence. It was an appeal, not to a demonstration of Infinite Goodness, but to a Power and Wisdom which were visibly unlimited and incomprehensible; "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?" The conditions of argument are similar in relation to Christianity. The Christian believes, from an immense variety, complexity, and convergence of proof, that the Book which contains it, and the system it reveals, never came from man. Particular objections to portions of it, nevertheless both as respects doctrine and history-may, like the correspondent difficulties in the outward universe, be attended with unanswerable perplexities; but the Christian listens to them just as he would to a judge, who, in his summing up, tells the jury that there can be no doubt that the evidencenine parts out of ten — will justify them in bringing in one, and only one verdict; though he says there may be one, two, or three points on which the evidence is conflicting, and on which neither himself nor mortal man can give or even suggest any plausible solution. -- To any such objections - the substantial points of the evidence remaining the Christian feels himself entitled to say, "Stand by; I cannot stop for you." In relation to many of them, he may boldly say, when called to solve them, "I cannot; Time may solve them, as I see it has solved many; and these, like those, may then be transferred to the other side of the account; but even now they cannot materially affect the columns which give the total." And, in my judgment, it is in many cases not only wise to say this, but the only |