Rothschild: "You must read my metaphysics in this last
_Contemporary_. My first and last appearance in the field of
metaphysics, where you, I know, are no stranger." The completed reply
was published as _God and the Bible_ in 1875. This reply, which
contained, as he thought, "the best prose he had ever succeeded in
writing," was a reassertion and development of the previous work, and
was written, as the preface said, "for a reader who is more or less
conversant with the Bible, who can feel the attraction of the Christian
religion, but who has acquired habits of intellectual seriousness, has
been revolted by having things presented solemnly to him for his use
which will not hold water, and who will start with none of such things
even to reach what he values. Come what may, he will deal with this
great matter of religion fairly. It is the aim of the present volume, as
it was the aim of _Literature and Dogma_, to show to such a man that his
honesty will be rewarded.... I write to convince the lover of religion
that by following habits of intellectual seriousness he need not, so far
as religion is concerned, lose anything."

It was, we must suppose, with the same benign intention that in 1877 he
addressed himself to the task of persuading the Edinburgh Philosophical
Institution that Bishop Butler was an untrustworthy guide in that
mysterious region which lies between Philosophy and Religion. For this
task, as Mr. Gladstone justly observed: he "was placed, by his own
peculiar opinions, in a position far from auspicious with respect to
this particular undertaking. He combined a fervent zeal for the
Christian religion with a not less boldly avowed determination to
transform it beyond the possibility of recognition by friend or foe. He
was thus placed under a sort of necessity to condemn the handiwork of
Bishop Butler, who in a certain sense gives it a new charter." Over
Butler's grave stands a magnificent inscription, from the pen of
Southey, which well illustrates the estimation in which for upwards of
a century he was held by the serious mind of England--

Others had established
the Historical and Prophetical grounds
of the Christian Religion,
and that sure testimony of its truth
which is found in its perfect adaptation
to the heart of man.
It was reserved for him to develop
its analogy to the Constitution
and Course of Nature;
and, laying his strong foundations
in the depth of that