not only to express more simply and truly the strength of Theism,” but to see to how great an extent the Atheist oftentimes accepts your Theism without your definition.

It would be pleasant to make extracts from these pages that are so burdened with great thoughts and comprehensive views. But if we should begin, we should not know where to leave off. We shall conclude, therefore, by advising the readers of this notice to get the book at once, and give it the careful and repeated perusal which its authorship and quality demand of every lover of Free Thought and wholesome inspiration.

J. W. C.

THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN THE INSPIRATION OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. By T. F. CURTIS, D. D., late Professor of Theology in the University at Lewisburg, Pa. New York: D. Appleton & Co, 445 Broadway. 1867. 12mo. pp. 386.

THIS book, written by a Doctor of Divinity, lately Professor of Theology in a Baptist Theological School in Pennsylvania, is in many respects peculiar and remarkable.

The author, dating his Preface from Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, tells us that his successive examinations of the great subject of Scriptural Inspiration, for the annual delivery of his Theological Lectures, produced a steady growth of those lectures in one direction, namely, a fuller recognition of the Human element in the Books of Scripture. Since his researches manifestly led him away from the view of Inspiration which he had formerly taught, and which his associates still held, and which was held as a fixed point of belief by the Institution, and the Sect which founded it- he thought it well to resign his Professorship for the purpose of making a more thorough examination of the subject, and of gaining an unshackled position from which to publish his views of it. This volume, very recently published, is the result of that examination.

A beautiful spirit of Christian love pervades the work, which exhibits also candor and justice towards the holders of different views on both sides. It has evidently been a painful thing to the author to differ with brethren whom he esteems and loves, in a matter which they are likely to regard as religious defection on his part. On the other hand, he has clearly seen "that men in Evangelical religious circles were for the most part too cautious in speaking with candor, or in making any concessions not absolutely wrung from them by the force of circumstances, and that the tendency of much of the teaching in our Theological Seminaries is to stifle deep, thorough, and candid inquiry on all these points, and therefore to leave our rising Ministry quite unprepared for the work of the age before them." He perceived, nevertheless, "that in all the Evangelical denominations a growing number of the most intelligent and influential ministers, including some conspicuously active and useful in every good word and work, were quietly drifting in the same direction" as himself, without declaring it; and, feeling "the duty of candid utterance of Christian truth and experience,” he concludes that "it is this religious reticence which is the thing most to be dreaded."

Dr. Curtis has been further stimulated to this publication by the knowledge that "There are many whose minds are now filled with most painful anxieties lest, in yielding respect to the Reason God has placed within them, they should be refusing to walk by faith in his Revelation of himself in the Scriptures ;" and he shows such persons that this doubt is caused "by the want of a sufficiently broad consideration and honor of God's other Revelations of himself, in Nature, in Providence, in History, and in Religious Experience."

After touching upon some unwarranted uses of the word "Inspiration," Dr. Curtis gives a sketch of the principal churches and persons who have occupied the two extremes in the controversy concerning the Bible. Of these, some so exalt the Divine element contained in it as practically to ignore the human; others so exalt the human element as to leave nothing like Divine authority in any of the contents of the book. Then he refers to those in more modern times who have maintained opinions intermediate between these two, describing Cousin, Morell, Schleiermacher, De Wette, Neander, Priestley, Dr. Pye Smith, Coleridge, Dr. Arnold of Rugby, Dean Stanley, Dr. Thompson (now Bishop of Gloucester), Bishop Colenso, Dr. Davidson, F. W. Robertson of Brighton, Mr. Westcott, and Rev. Mr. Farrar, author of the "Critical History of Free Thought."

Dr. Curtis formerly held the belief taught by Gaussen, namely, that the Inspiration of Scripture secures its absolute infallibility in every part; as to its science, its history, and its theological and religious elements. Careful examination has shown him that this hypothesis is unsound; and now, he tells us, he is one of "those who look upon Inspiration as a positive, and not a negative Divine power; as not destroying, but elevating the human element in man; as not conferring a necessary or absolute immunity from all error or infirmity, but as guiding the authors and quickening their writings with a divine life, and clothing them with a Divine authority similar precisely to that with which the Apostles themselves were endowed, when commissioned to institute and establish the primitive Church. That is to say, their inspiration gave them certain Divine powers as a whole, leaving their individual and human errors to be eliminated by degrees as necessary for the life of truth, just as St. Paul said of himself—'We have this treasure in earthern vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us !'"

Our author then proceeds to consider those external and internal difficulties which show the claim of infallibility for Old Testament Inspiration to be unsound, referring to Colenso, Ewald, and De Wette, for fuller details of the difficulties in question; he then shows the fallacy of the popular view respecting New Testament teachings on the Inspiration of the Old; and then makes it plain that New Testament Inspiration makes no claim or pretence to infallibility. He shows that neither Christianity nor Divine Revelation is intended to exclude reason, and that there is no antagonism between Natural and Revealed religion. He shows the Christian idea of the Inspiring Spirit, given to all devout souls in modern times as much as in ancient, yet never guaranteeing any of them against human imperfection,

either in speech, writing, or action. He then examines the New Testament documents, answers objections that may be raised against his statements, unfolds more minutely the true view of the inspiration of the Bible, reveals the bearing of the whole on religious efforts and denominations, and closes with a sketch of the true Evidences of Christianity.

It is noticeable that Dr. Curtis compliments the great Council of Orthodox Congregationalists recently held in Boston and Plymouth, as having intentionally avoided vouching for the infallibility of the Bible when they declared its inspiration; as having designedly confined their testimony on this point to an affirmation that the Bible contains the word of God, not that it is, in each and every part, the word of God. He thinks that, in view of the insuperable objections brought by modern criticism against the hypothesis of infallibie inspiration, these Orthodox Congregationalists preferred to take merely the general ground above described, which is the view taken by the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England. The praise given to Dr. Curtis's book by The Congregationalist of this city, the editors of which were prominent actors in that Council, looks as if this theory might be the true one, though it is not popularly so understood.

It ought to be said before closing, that the numerous typographical errors of this book, many of them obscuring the sense, are disgraceful to the New York publishers.

C. K. W.

Messrs. Leypoldt & Holt are the American agents of Bernard Tauchnitz, the famous Leipzig publisher, whose cheap, handy editions of English authors are so well known. Tauchnitz has recently undertaken to introduce in England and America translations of "the masterpieces of German literature of recent date as well as of the classical period." Auerbach's ON THE HEIGHTS, the first on the new list, has found many delighted readers already. IN THE YEAR 13, a Tale of Mecklenburgle Life, by Fritz Reuter, which comes next, is a simple lively story of the time when Germany was beginning to rise against Napoleon. Goethe's FAUST, in the translation of John Anster, and volumes of Tales by Paul Heyse, by H. Zschokke, and by Fouqué, will succeed.

It will give pleasure to many readers of THE RADICAL to learn that the attempt is being made, by the publishers named above, to bring to the knowledge of American workingmen the principles and practical methods, and the surprising results, of co-operation. CO-OPERATIVE Store SociETIES, already published, and to be had of Leypoldt & Holt, 451 Broome St., New York, unbound for fifty cents, bound, one dollar, is an admirable summary of what has been done, and can be done, to enable the workingman to buy the necessaries of life without paying a large profit to retail traders. Every man interested in the great question of work and the workingman's welfare, ought to read this little volume, and the similar volumes about to appear, one on Co-OPERATIVE LABOR SOCIETIES, and one on CO-OPERATive Credit SoCIETIES. These are practical books, intended for the people. They should have a wide circulation; and undoubtedly they will be productive of great good.

Y.

THE

RADICAL.

JANUARY, 1868.

THE IDEA OF GOD.

I

AN ESSAY READ TO SOME FRIENDS.

HARDLY dare write the word which is my subject. Did Oriental genius imagine God ineffable, because, like all else human lips articulate, He too becomes a phrase, different persons mean not the same thing by, so diverse that one theologian says to another: "Your God is my devil!" Contrary conception of God is at the bottom of all religious controversy. Whether to call Jesus Lord, as a common term given also to God, was the supposed issue in the famous New York and Syracuse Unitarian "Preamble." One side was thought to detract from Christ, the other from God. But the subjection of the Son to the Father, predicted by Paul, seems to have come to pass. The church puts off the time beyond the shadows of death and gravestones of all generations. But how gross to interpret Christ's resignation in God's favor as a literal scene and formal transaction, like giving up seals of office, or keys of a castle, or a regent's yielding the crown! No, Jesus is not visibly to dismount from his seat, doff a diadem and be deposed. But, as John the Baptist decreased before Jesus, Jesus decreases before God or the growing sense of God in the human soul. So the morning star wanes before the waxing moon, and the golden moon changes to a silver veil hanging torn on the face of the sky, before the rising sun. Christ's declension before God is no mark on the dial-plate of earth and sky, but an hour struck on the clock of thought, a date in the annals of the soul. When the mind is possessed of Him, whom purity of heart is the eye to see, what are other seers but our companions in vision, or beckoning us to sight, as on looking at Niagara, the Atlantic, or the Alps? The ambassador serves when the monarch is not by. But how the plenipotentiary is discounted, when the monarchs convene at Paris, or

one visits another at the Austiran Revelation, we are "immediately in displaced.

Access to God and a way of acces mote, an island cut off from the boat or bridge, the boldest swimme Heart of the upholstery of your No such separate body, and his cr Approach to God or He to you? Y project Him from you. He is the ca He is within the focus of your sigh cannot find the line of union. Co but sympathize with others alike co workers, messengers from paradise, cannot come in between.

But is there not one exception, th a virgin, begotten of no man? W human parentage, a moiety of fles Adam were more the Son of God popular Genesis, not half, but all h woman the holy vessel, and man's p why not daughter of God, as well dation, were but two women, Mar Then are our mothers no virgins be bearing us with pain in the marriag as heavenly we might have? O fat from sight, putting all our parentag becoming our brothers and sisters one eternal Head, did you stain us has got to be washed off? No! i and spirit. There are not two kin and yours. There can be, apart fr throne, no single son, but from all as the physiologist tells us there w of life.

In affirming this growing sense mean no affront to history, no bra church as a superfluity, or christen not imagine the unity of the world must adore. Through what a st seemed the best and greatest God as one's life was worth to question