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D.

Page 32, line 17-"Let us hear Luther."

The statement respecting the Waldenses, with the quotation which follows from Walch's edition of Luther's Works, were taken from the "Contemporary Review."

E.

Page 42, line 18-Abraham's sacrifice.

Although, as has been intimated, I have not proposed to bring to the Bible foreign criticism, but to take it as it is open to all of us, yet had the sanction given to my view of this sacrifice in Dean Stanley's "Lectures on the Jewish Church" come under my notice previously, it would have been referred to in confirmation. I am aware of the greater difficulty attaching to the mention made of Abraham's intention as an act in the New Testament, Hebrews xi. 17, James ii. 21. Here, Abraham's faith is recognised not in his after conviction that God required no such sacrifice as his son, but in his willingness to offer it if required. And did I think the arm of Abraham was stayed otherwise than by a change in his own mind, I must acknowledge in this record some identification of Bible faith with that fear of the Unseen-to which I believe true faith is the antidote. Being fully persuaded, however, that Abraham earned

the name of "Faithful" by his implicit trust in inward guidance, that by this he was (like Mahomet in later times) enabled to renounce idolatry, I see in his experience, as in that of Paul and Luther, how surely the willing feet are led by the moral sense out of the broad road of superstition into the narrow way of righteousness. That in each of these cases the broad road was traversed with alacrity, only gave promise that soon would the dire precipice to which it tends, be reached; and that, recoiling from it, the misguided devotee would with the greater speed and certainty gain the right path, and live henceforth to warn all travellers in the wrong that "there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."

F.

Page 46, line 8-the view given of Socrates in "Ecce Homo."

I must apologise for the use on this page and elsewhere of inverted commas, where I have slightly altered, or added to quotations from the Bible and other books. The variations are I trust in each case too simple and obvious to imply a wish to mislead. In "Ecce Homo " Socrates is called the "Creator of Science;" by which of course we must understand the method used for its

attainment, not the thing attained. I am aware of the

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value of this method in relation to what is among us called Science, but since it would seem that this word has in the mouth of Socrates a different meaning, that being with him the known, which we name the "unknowable;" I have dared to suggest that a higher method than acute reasoning was deemed by him needful for its attainment; and that his arguments were valued by himself mainly as they cleared the way for the reception of the "truths that never can be proved." I take this suggestion to be borne out by the satisfaction with which Socrates. points out at the close of his discussions that while by them his opponents are indeed rendered self-confuting, the much sought for truth is still left far out of reach. I give the following as a fair sample of his "conclusion of the whole matter "For my part, Protagoras, I am heartily sorry to see all our principles so horribly confounded and turned topsy-turvy; and I could passionately wish that we could disentangle and explain them," &c. It is indeed only of what I conceive to be the religious bearing of the teachings of Socrates that I am qualified to speak, but here I own it seems to me that just as Paul, appealing to the Jew, shows the best work of his just, good, and holy law to be, the proving "what it could not do;" so Socrates, in arguing with the Greek, sets forth as the highest result of right reasoning, a conviction that by it without "the desire of virtue, which is virtue," the deepest truths cannot be known; a result we too may see in the greater humility and reverence which characterize the riper philosophers of the nineteenth, as

compared with those of the eighteenth century—and which goes far to confute the enormous fallacy that "ignorance is the mother of devotion." I know the exalted position held by Socrates among Greek philosophers; but with regard to his "successors," surely morally and religiously their characters could suffer nothing by comparison with the nominal "successors of the Apostles," the so-called "Vicars of Christ!"

A FEW WORDS,

&c., &c.

A.

Page 163, line 10.-"a species of affection, the individuality of which is merged in all-embracing 'celestial love.""

This merging of the social affections in a higher love may seem to tend towards self-concentration, but looked into it proves to be a completion, or perfecting of a species of affection, which owes its "individuality" to its falling short of the pure love, whose sole elements are benevolence and complacency. Not to care for those who have cared for us, or whose interests are bound up with ours, may argue incapacity for loving; yet, can we not certainly recognize love of the purest order, in manifest concern for the prosperity and reputation of those whose loss or disgrace involves our own. In "King Lear," how gradually is a fearful lack of social affection developed by the separation of interests, which, so long as they are united, induce a show, and we may infer a substance of regard for Parent and Sister in the heartless daughters! Do we not recognise the

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