Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again | Page 7

a great amount of information about infidelity, of the most melancholy, but of the most interesting and important character.
This Autobiography of Mr. Mill I propose to review. I meant to review it in this volume, but I had not room. I intend therefore to give it a place in my next volume, which may be looked for in the course of the year.
Another work has just been published, called The Old Faith and the New. It is the last and most important work of D. F. Strauss, the greatest and ablest advocate of antichristian and atheistic views that the ages have produced,--the Colossus or Goliath of all the infidel hosts of Christendom. In this work, which he calls his CONFESSION, Strauss, like Mill, gives us a portrait of himself, exhibiting not only his views, and the arguments by which he labors to sustain them, but the influence of those views on the hearts, the lives, the characters, and the enjoyments of men. If this Book can be answered,--if the arguments of Strauss can be fairly met, and his views effectually refuted, infidelity must suffer serious damage, and the cause of Christianity be greatly benefited. I have gone through the Book with great care. I have measured and weighed its arguments. And my conviction is, that the work admits of a thorough and satisfactory refutation. If I had had space, I should have made some remarks on it in this volume: but I had not. I propose therefore to review it at considerable length in my next.
Some time ago Robert Owen was a prominent man in the infidel world. He was extolled by his friends as a great Philanthropist. He too left us a history of his life, and his son, Robert Dale Owen, has just been repeating portions of that history in the Atlantic Monthly. It may be interesting to my readers to know what Atheism can do in the way of Philanthropy. We propose therefore to add a review of the Life of Robert Owen to those of Strauss and Mill.
Robert Dale Owen himself was an Atheist formerly, and a very zealous and able advocate of Atheistical views. He gives his articles in the Atlantic Monthly as an autobiography, and seeks to make the impression that he has revealed to his readers all the important facts of his history without reserve. And he has certainly revealed some strange things. But there are certain facts which he has not revealed, facts of great importance too, calculated to show the demoralizing tendency of infidelity. We propose to render the autobiography of Mr. Dale Owen more complete, more interesting, and more instructive, by the addition of some of those facts.
Frances or Fanny Wright was a friend of Mr. Dale Owen's. She was the great representative female Atheist of her time. Like Mr. Dale Owen's father, she was rich, and like him, seemed desirous to do something in the way of philanthropy. Mr. Dale Owen, who was her agent for some time, gives us some interesting facts with regard to her history, which may prove of service to our readers.
In Buckle we have an Atheistical Historian, who endeavors to prove that we are indebted for all the advantages of our superior civilization, not to Christianity, but to natural science and skepticism alone. He represents Christianity as the enemy of science, and as the great impediment to the advance of civilization. These views of Buckle we regard as false and foolish to the last extreme, and we expect to be able to show that Europe and America are indebted for their superior civilization, and even for their rich treasures of natural science, not to infidelity, but to the influence of Christianity.
Matthew Arnold has just published an interesting book entitled LITERATURE AND DOGMA. It is however a mixed work; and we propose, while noticing a number of its beautiful utterances, to make a few remarks on some of its objectionable sentiments.
There is a great multitude of important facts with regard to Christianity,--facts which can be understood and appreciated by persons of ordinary capacity, and which no man of intelligence and candor will be disposed to call in question; yet facts of such a character as cannot fail, when duly considered, to leave the impression on men's minds, that Christianity is the perfection of all wisdom and goodness, and worthy of acceptance as a revelation from an all-perfect God, and as the mightiest and most beneficent friend of mankind. A number of those facts we propose to give in our next volume.

MODERN SKEPTICISM.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
When a man has travelled far, and seen strange lands, and dwelt among strange peoples, and encountered unusual dangers, it is natural, on his return home, that he should feel disposed to communicate to his family and friends some of the incidents of