title it. No reasonable man should complain of such a precaution.
Certainly, the present writer should not complain of such treatment, for
it is precisely the treatment which he has received from himself. He well
remembers, that when the great truths, as he now conceives them to be,
first dawned upon his own mind, how sadly they disturbed and perplexed his
blind veneration for the past. As he was himself, then, so ready to shrink
from his own views as "new theology," he surely cannot censure any one
else for so doing, provided he will but give them a fair and impartial
hearing before he proceeds to scout them from his presence.

It is true, after the writer had once fairly made the discovery that "old
theology" is not necessarily true theology, he could proceed with the
greater freedom in his inquiries. He did not very particularly inquire
whether _this_ or _that_ was old or new, but whether it was true. He felt
assured, that if he could only be so fortunate as to find the truth, the
defect of novelty would be cured by lapse of time, and he need give
himself no very great concern about it.

Not many centuries ago, as everybody knows, Galileo was condemned and
imprisoned for teaching "new theology." He had the unbounded audacity to
put forth the insufferable heresy, "directly against the very word of God
itself," that the sun does not revolve around the earth. The Vatican
thundered, and crushed Galileo; but it did not shake the solar system.
This stood as firm in its centre, and rolled on as calmly and as
majestically in its course, as if the Vatican had not uttered its
anathema. Its thunders are all hushed now. Nay, it has even reversed its
former decree, and concluded to permit the orbs of light to roll on in the
paths appointed for them by the mighty hand that reared this beautiful
fabric of the heavens and the earth. Even so will it be, in relation to
all sound views pertaining to the constitution and government of the moral
world; and those who may deem them unsound, will have to give some more
solid reason than an odious epithet, before they can resist their
progress.

We do not pretend that they have not, or that they cannot give, more solid
reasons for this opposition to what is called "new theology." We only
mean, that an _objection_, which, entirely overlooking the truth or the
falsehood of an opinion, appeals to prejudice by the use of an odious
name, is unworthy of a serious and candid inquirer after truth,