prodigious; so now there are hundreds of dilettanti pantheists', mystics
and sceptics to whom everything is a 'sham,' an 'unreality'; Who tell
us that the world stands in need of a great 'prophet,' a seer,' a 'true
prophet', a large soul,' a god-like soul,'*--who shall dive into 'the
depths of the human consciousness,' and whose 'utterances' shall
rouse the human mind from the 'cheats and frauds' which have hitherto
everywhere practised on its simplicity. The tell us, in relation to
philosophy, religion, and especially in relation to Christianity,
that all that has been believed by mankind has been believed only on
'empirical' grounds; and that the old answers to difficulties will do
no longer. They shake their sage heads at such men as Clarke, Paley,
Butler, and declare that such arguments as theirs will not satisfy
them.,--We are glad to admit that all this vague pretension is now
but rarely displayed with the scurrilous spirit of that elder unbelief
against which the long series of British apologists for Christianity
arose between 1700 and 1750; But there is often in it an arrogance
as real, though not in so offensive a form. Sometimes the spirit
of unbelief even assumes an air of sentimental regret at its own
inconvenient profundity. Many a worthy youth tells us he almost wishes
he could believe. He admires, of all things, the 'moral grandeur'--the
'ethical beauty' of many parts of Christianity; he condescends to
patronize Jesus Christ, though he believes that the great mass of
words and actions by which alone we know anything about him, are sheer
fictions or legends; he believes--gratuitously enough in this instance,
for he has no ground for it--that Jesus Christ was a very 'great man'
worthy of comparison at least with Mahomet, Luther, Napoleon, and 'other
heroes'; he even admits that happiness of a simple, child-like faith, in
the puerilities of Christianity--it produces such content of mind! But
alas! he cannot believe--his intellect is not satisfied--he has revolved
the matter too profoundly to be thus taken in; he must, he supposes,