very
page. He was, as Novalis said of Spinoza, "A God-intoxicated man," but
it was God as containing humanity in himself. His theology was a
veritable Jacob's ladder, on which the angels of God ascend and descend;
and if in his thought they descended before they ascended, it was
because he conceived of humanity as existing in God before it was
manifest in creation; and if his head was among the stars, his feet were
always firmly planted on the earth. This twofoldness finds a curious
illustration in the sub-titles of several of his books. 'The Vicarious
Sacrifice' does not spring alone out of the divine nature, but is
'Grounded in Principles of Universal Obligation.' 'Nature and the
Supernatural'--the great antithesis in theology--constitute 'The One
System of God.' 'Women's Suffrage' is 'The Reform against Nature'--the
best book, I must be permitted to say, on either side of this
much-debated question.

It is a popular impression of Dr. Bushnell that he was the subject of
his imagination, and that it ran away with him in the treatment of
themes which required only severe thought: the impression is a double
mistake: theology does not call for severe thought, alone nor mainly;
but first and chiefly for the imagination, and the seeing and
interpreting eye that usually goes with it; its object is to find
spirit under form, to discover what the _logos_ expresses. For this
the imagination is the chief requisite. It is not a vagrant and
irresponsible faculty, but an inner eye whose vision is to be trusted
like that of the outer; it has in itself the quality of thought, and is
not a mere picture-making gift. Dr. Bushnell trained his imagination to
work on certain definite lines, and for a definite end--namely, to bring
out the spiritual meaning hidden within the external form. He worked in
the spirit of Coleridge's words:--

"I had found
That outward forms the loftiest, still receive
Their finer influence from the Life within."

No analysis or recapitulation of his works can be given in these
preliminary words. Perhaps his most influential book is the first,
'Christian Nurture'; while a treatise for the household, it was
surcharged with theological opinions which proved to be revolutionary
and epoch-making. 'The Vicarious Sacrifice' has most affected the
pulpit. 'Nature and the Supernatural,' the tenth chapter of which has
become a classic, has done great service in driving out the extreme
dualism tha