these views * * *
Young persons are not able to judge what is allegory and what is not, but
whatever opinions they receive at such an age are wont to be obliterated
with difficulty, and immovable. Hence one would think, we should of all
things endeavor, that what they should first hear be composed in the best
manner for exciting them to virtue."

"Republic," Book II.

[27] How then are we to know what words and deeds express the mind of God,
are words of the Lord, examples He presents for our imitation? By the mind
of God manifest in 'the express image of His person?' All morality and
religion is to be tried by 'the mind which was in Christ,' 'the spirit of
Christ which dwelleth in us.'

[28] In what is said above there la no positive denial intended of the Old
Testament miracles. We are in no position to deny them. The point is
simply that they are not bounden on us in any reasonable and reverent
recognition of a real historical revelation in the Old Testament, and need
trouble no one who cannot receive them. The miracles of Christ, when
reduced to the wonders reported by the conjoint testimony of the
synoptics,--_i.e._, to the common tradition of the early church, stand apart
from all other Scripture miracles; having a reasonable and natural
character as the powers of such a personality, and coming within the ken
of our visions of possibility. They are imaged In the well attested powers
of rare men. They appear as in no wise violations of law, but as the
manifestations of nature's laws and forces worked by the normal man,
having 'dominion' over the earth. "The wise soul expels disease."

[29] So judicious a commentator as Dean Alford, in his introduction to the
Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, discussing the vexed question of the
Daniel-like section in the third chapter, so wholly unlike Paul observes:

"If we have" (in any sense, God speaking in the Bible) "then, of all
passages, it is in these, which treat so confidently of futurity, that we
must recognize His voice; if we have it not in these passages, _then,
where are we to listen for it at all_?"--Greek Testament III:64.

[30] "History of American Socialisms,"--Noyes.--p. 608.

[31] "To understand that the language of the Bible is fluid, passing and
literary, not rigid, fixed and scientific, is the first step towards a
right understanding of the Bible."--_Literature and Dogma_.--p. xii.

[32] The revised version calls the attention of English readers