all the analogies of religious history,--and the continued
preservation of the Jews among all nations without forming a part of
any,--I cannot think that Christianity is precisely in the condition
of any other religion.

Such, gentlemen, were some few of the differences in fact which seemed
to me, not less than its theory, to discriminate Christianity from other
religions. Had I in those days of my youth, been favored with the views
of modern "spiritualism," I should have added, that till it is shown that
some other religion has possessed an equal power of moulding those
characters whom Mr. Newman points out as the best examples of "spiritual"
religion, and can point to oracles equally pervaded by that "sentiment"
which he declares is wanting in Greek philosophers, English Deists, and
German Pantheists, but which, he admits, pervades the Bible; till I see
the devout men whom he extols produced by other religions, or rather. I
ought to say, produced without them (where Christianity however is
unknown) by the unaided "spiritual faculty,"--I cannot but think
that the position of Christianity is somewhat discriminated both from
other religions and from "Naturalism."

Such, I said, to conclude, was an imperfect outline of some of my early
conflicts, and such the cruel mode in which my unbelieving friends
laughed at each other's hypotheses, and left me destitute of any.
Finding that they conclusively confuted one another, and perceiving
at last that the idea of the superhuman origin of Christianity did,
and, as Bishop Butler says, alone can resolve all the difficulties of
the subject, I was compelled to forego all the advantages of infidelity,
and condescended to "depress" my conscience to the "Biblical standard"!
Would to Heaven that it had never been depressed below it!

I am bound to say my auditors listened with courtesy. The conversation
was now carried on in little knots: I, who was glad of a rest, was
occupied in listening to a conversation between Harrington and his
Italian friend, who was urging him to take refuge from such a Babel
of discords as his company had uttered, in the only secure asylum.
Harrington told him, with the utmost gravity, that one great objection
to the Church of Rome was the unseemly liberty she allowed to the
right of private judgment; that he found in her communion distractions
the most perplexing, especially as between English and foreign Romanists!

____

After the party had broken up,