ce with the singular
youth, some traits of whose character and
some glimpses of whose history are here given,
--he leaves the above question to the decision of
the reader. At the same time, it is of no consequence
in the world. The character and purport
of the volume are sufficiently disclosed in the
parting words of the Journalist. "It aspires,"
as is justly said, "to none of the appropriate
interest either of a novel or a biography." It might
have been very properly entitled "Theological Fragments."

March 31, 1852.

INTRODUCTION

A GENUINE SCEPTIC

A VERSATILE BELIEVER

PURITAN INFIDELITY

LORD HERBERT AND MODERN DEISM

SOME CURIOUS PARADOXES

PROBLEMS

A DIALOGUE SHOWING THAT "THAT MAY BE POSSIBLE WITH
MAN WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD"

SCEPTIC'S FAVORITE TOPICS

UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM

A SCEPTICS FIRST CATECHISM
SOME LIGHT ON THE MYSTERY

BELIEF AND FAITH

THE "VIA MEDIA" OF DEISM

A SCEPTIC'S SELECT PARTY

HOW IT WAS THAT INFIDELITY PREVENTED MY BECOMING AN
INFIDEL

SKIRMISHES

CHRISTIAN ETHICS

THE BLANK BIBLE

A DIALOGUE IN WHICH IT IS CONTENDED "THAT MIRACLES ARE
IMPOSSIBLE, BUT THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PROVE IT"

THE ANALOGIES OF AN EXTERNAL REVELATION WITH THE LAWS
AND CONDITIONS OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

ON A PREVAILING FALLACY

HISTORIC CREDIBILITY

A KNOTTY POINT

MEDICAL ANALOGIES

HISTORIC CRITICISM

THE "PAPAL AGGRESSION" PROVED TO BE IMPOSSIBLE

THE PARADISE OF FOOLS

A FUTURE LIFE

A VARIABLE QUANTITY

DISCUSSION OF THREE POINTS

THE LAST EVENING

THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH.

To E. B*****, Missionary in ------, South Pacific.

Wednesday, June 18, 1851.

My Dear Edward:--

You have more than once asked me to send you,
in your distant solitude, my impressions respecting the religious
distractions in which your native country has been of late years
involved. I have refused, partly, because it would take a volume
to give you any just notions on the subject; and partly, because
I am not quite sure that you would not be happier in ignorance.
Think, if you can, of your native land as in this respect what
it was when you left it, on your exile of Christian love,
some fifteen years ago.

I little thought I should ever have so mournful a motive to
depart in some degree from my resolution. I intended to leave
you to glean what you could of our religious condition from such
publications as might reach you. But I am now constrained to write
something about