The Eclipse of Faith | Page 2

question to be paramount in its relation to the whole issue, it is one which is not so judiciously dealt with in the discursiveness of dialogues after dinner, as in the solitary study, with piles of huge tomes, lexicons, and manuscripts that require a most deliberate examination. But to leave the merits and the relative importance of this question undebated, it might have been more generous in the Reviewer to have confined his criticisms to a decision upon what the author has endeavored to accomplish, instead of impugning his judgment in the selection of the points on which to employ his pen. How ever desirable it may be that we should have in another form what Mr. Norton has presented so thoroughly in his work on the Genuineness of the Gospels, it is enough to answer to the Reviewer in the Prospective, that the writer of this volume addressed himself to a different course of argument, starting from other divergences of opinion, philosophical rather than critical in their relations. He certainly was free to select the method and the direction of his argument, if he candidly represented the answering point of view of those to whom he opposed himself.
Amid many episodes and interludes of fancy and narrative, it will be found that the volume arrays its force of argument against two of the assumptions alike of modern and of ancient scepticism; namely, that a revelation from God to men through the agency of a book is an unreasonable tenet of belief; and that it is impossible that a miracle should occur, and impossible that its occurrence should be authenticated. There is a vigorous and logical power displayed in the discussion of these two points. The discomfiture of those who urge these assumptions does not of course convince all scepticism, or substitute faith for it, but it is something to discomfit such pleas, and to expose the fallacies which confuse the minds of their advocates. The matters of debate are lofty, and there is no levity in their treatment.
ADVERTISEMENT.
He who reads this book only superficially will at once see that it is not all fiction; and he who reads it more than superficially will as easily see that it is not all fact. In what proportions it is composed of either would probably require a very acute critic accurately to determine. As the Editor makes no pretensions to such acumen,--as he can lay claim to only an imperfect knowledge of the principal personage in the volume, and never had any personal acquaintance with the singular youth, some traits of whose character and some glimpses of whose history are here given, --he leaves the above question to the decision of the reader. At the same time, it is of no consequence in the world. The character and purport of the volume are sufficiently disclosed in the parting words of the Journalist. "It aspires," as is justly said, "to none of the appropriate interest either of a novel or a biography." It might have been very properly entitled "Theological Fragments."
March 31, 1852.
INTRODUCTION
A GENUINE SCEPTIC
A VERSATILE BELIEVER
PURITAN INFIDELITY
LORD HERBERT AND MODERN DEISM
SOME CURIOUS PARADOXES
PROBLEMS
A DIALOGUE SHOWING THAT "THAT MAY BE POSSIBLE WITH MAN WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD"
SCEPTIC'S FAVORITE TOPICS
UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM
A SCEPTICS FIRST CATECHISM SOME LIGHT ON THE MYSTERY
BELIEF AND FAITH
THE "VIA MEDIA" OF DEISM
A SCEPTIC'S SELECT PARTY
HOW IT WAS THAT INFIDELITY PREVENTED MY BECOMING AN INFIDEL
SKIRMISHES
CHRISTIAN ETHICS
THE BLANK BIBLE
A DIALOGUE IN WHICH IT IS CONTENDED "THAT MIRACLES ARE IMPOSSIBLE, BUT THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PROVE IT"
THE ANALOGIES OF AN EXTERNAL REVELATION WITH THE LAWS AND CONDITIONS OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
ON A PREVAILING FALLACY
HISTORIC CREDIBILITY
A KNOTTY POINT
MEDICAL ANALOGIES
HISTORIC CRITICISM
THE "PAPAL AGGRESSION" PROVED TO BE IMPOSSIBLE
THE PARADISE OF FOOLS
A FUTURE LIFE
A VARIABLE QUANTITY
DISCUSSION OF THREE POINTS
THE LAST EVENING
THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH.
To E. B*****, Missionary in ------, South Pacific.
Wednesday, June 18, 1851.
My Dear Edward:--
You have more than once asked me to send you, in your distant solitude, my impressions respecting the religious distractions in which your native country has been of late years involved. I have refused, partly, because it would take a volume to give you any just notions on the subject; and partly, because I am not quite sure that you would not be happier in ignorance. Think, if you can, of your native land as in this respect what it was when you left it, on your exile of Christian love, some fifteen years ago.
I little thought I should ever have so mournful a motive to depart in some degree from my resolution. I intended to leave you to glean what you could of our religious condition from such publications as might reach you. But I am now constrained to write something about it. My dear brother, you will hear it with a sad heart;--your nephew and mine, our only sister's only child,