The Professor at the Breakfast Table | Page 5

his more or less aggressive
ideas. He wishes to convince, not to offend,--to obtain a hearing for his
thought, not to stir up angry opposition in those who do not accept it.
There is commonly an anxious look about a first Preface. The author
thinks he shall be misapprehended about this or that matter, that his
well-meant expressions will probably be invidiously interpreted by
those whom he looks upon as prejudiced critics, and if he deals with
living questions that he will be attacked as a destructive by the
conservatives and reproached for his timidity by the noisier radicals.
The first Preface, therefore, is likely to be the weakest part of a work
containing the thoughts of an honest writer.
After a time the writer has cooled down from his excitement,--has got
over his apprehensions, is pleased to find that his book is still read, and
that he must write a new Preface. He comes smiling to his task. How
many things have explained themselves in the ten or twenty or thirty

years since he came before his untried public in those almost plaintive
paragraphs in which he introduced himself to his readers,--for the
Preface writer, no matter how fierce a combatant he may prove, comes
on to the stage with his shield on his right arm and his sword in his left
hand.
The Professor at the Breakfast-Table came out in the "Atlantic
Monthly" and introduced itself without any formal Preface. A quarter
of a century later the Preface of 1882, which the reader has just had laid
before him, was written. There is no mark of worry, I think, in that. Old
opponents had come up and shaken hands with the author they had
attacked or denounced. Newspapers which had warned their subscribers
against him were glad to get him as a contributor to their columns. A
great change had come over the community with reference to their
beliefs. Christian believers were united as never before in the feeling
that, after all, their common object was to elevate the moral and
religious standard of humanity. But within the special compartments of
the great Christian fold the marks of division have pronounced
themselves in the most unmistakable manner. As an example we may
take the lines of cleavage which have shown themselves in the two
great churches, the Congregational and the Presbyterian, and the very
distinct fissure which is manifest in the transplanted Anglican church of
this country. Recent circumstances have brought out the fact of the
great change in the dogmatic communities which has been going on
silently but surely. The licensing of a missionary, the transfer of a
Professor from one department to another, the election of a
Bishop,--each of these movements furnishes evidence that there is no
such thing as an air- tight reservoir of doctrinal finalities.
The folding-doors are wide open to every Protestant to enter all the
privileged precincts and private apartments of the various exclusive
religious organizations. We may demand the credentials of every creed
and catechise all the catechisms. So we may discuss the gravest
questions unblamed over our morning coffee-cups or our evening
tea-cups. There is no rest for the Protestant until he gives up his
legendary anthropology and all its dogmatic dependencies.
It is only incidentally, however, that the Professor at the
Breakfast-Table handles matters which are the subjects of religious
controversy. The reader who is sensitive about having his fixed beliefs

dealt with as if they were open to question had better skip the pages
which look as if they would disturb his complacency. "Faith" is the
most precious of possessions, and it dislikes being meddled with. It
means, of course, self-trust,--that is, a belief in the value of our, own
opinion of a doctrine, of a church, of a religion, of a Being, a belief
quite independent of any evidence that we can bring to convince a jury
of our fellow beings. Its roots are thus inextricably entangled with those
of self-love and bleed as mandrakes were said to, when pulled up as
weeds. Some persons may even at this late day take offence at a few
opinions expressed in the following pages, but most of these passages
will be read without loss of temper by those who disagree with them,
and by-and-by they may be found too timid and conservative for
intelligent readers, if they are still read by any.
BEVERLY FARM, MASS., June 18, 1891.
O. W. H.

THE PROFESSOR
AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.
What he said, what he heard, and what he saw.

I
I intended to have signalized my first appearance by a certain large
statement, which I flatter myself is the nearest approach to a universal
formula, of life yet promulgated at this breakfast-table. It would have
had a grand effect. For this purpose