vangelicals will reply, that I never can have had
"the true" faith; else I could never have lost it: and as for my
not being conscious of spiritual change, they will accept this as
confirming their assertion. Undoubtedly I cannot prove that I ever
felt as they now feel: perhaps they love their present opinions _more
than_ truth, and are careless to examine and verify them; with that
I claim no fellowship. But there are Christians, and Evangelical
Christians, of another stamp, who love their creed, _only_ because
they believe it to be true, but love truth, as such, and truthfulness,
more than any creed: with these I claim fellowship. Their love to God
and man, their allegiance to righteousness and true holiness, will
not be in suspense and liable to be overturned by new discoveries in
geology and in ancient inscriptions, or by improved criticism of texts
and of history, nor have they any imaginable interest in thwarting
the advance of scholarship. It is strange indeed to undervalue _that_
Faith, which alone is purely moral and spiritual, alone rests on
a basis that cannot be shaken, alone lifts the possessor above the
conflicts of erudition, and makes it impossible for him to fear the
increase of knowledge.

I fully expected that reviewers and opponents from the evangelical
school would laboriously insinuate or assert, that I _never was_
a Christian and do not understand anything about Christianity
spiritually. My expectations have been more than fulfilled; and the
course which my assailants have taken leads me to add some topics to
the last paragraph. I say then, that if I had been slain at the age of
twenty-seven, when I was chased[8] by a mob of infuriated Mussulmans
for selling New Testaments, they would have trumpeted me as an
eminent saint and martyr. I add, that many circumstances within easy
possibility might have led to my being engaged as an official teacher
of a congregation at the usual age, which would in all probability
have arrested my intellectual development, and have stereotyped my
creed for many a long year; and then also they would have acknowledged
me as a Christian. A little more stupidity, a little more worldliness,
a little more mental dishonesty in me, or perhaps a little more
kindness and management in others, would have kept me in my old state,
which was acknowledged and would still be acknowledged as Christian.
To try to disown me now, is an impotent superciliousness.

At the same time, I co