son to the
exclusion of faith, for otherwise there would be no adequate test of
man's docility and submission; nor of a faith that would assert itself,
not only independent of reason, but in contradiction to it,--which
would not be what God requires, and what alone can quadrate with that
intelligent nature He has impressed on His offspring--a reasonable
obedience. Implicit obedience, then, to the dictates of an all-perfect
wisdom, exercised amidst many difficulties and perplexities, as so many
tests of sincerity, and yet sustained by evidences which justify the
conclusions which involve them, would seem to be the great object of
man's moral education here; and to justify both the partial evidence
addressed to his reason, and the abundant difficulties which it leaves
to his faith. 'The evidence of religion,' says Butler, 'is fully
sufficient for all the purposes of probation, how far soever it is from
being satisfactory as to the purposes of curiosity, or any other: and,
indeed, it answers the purposes of the former in several respects which
it would not do if it were as over-bearing as is required.'* Or as
Pascal beautifully puts it:--'There is light enough for those whose
sincere wish is to see,--and darkness enough to confound those of an
opposite disposition.'+

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* Analogy, part 2. chap. viii. + Pensees. Faugere's edition, tom. ii. p.
151. The views here developed will be found an expansion of some brief
hints at the close of the article on Pascal's 'Life and Genius' (Ed.
Review, Jan. 1847), though our space then prevented us from more than
touching these topics. We may add that we gladly take this opportunity
of pointing the attention of our readers to a tract of Archbishop
Whately's, entitled 'The example of children as proposed to Christians,'
which his Grace, having been struck with a coincidence between some of
the thoughts in the tract and those expressed in the 'Review,' did us
the favour to transmit to us. Had we seen the tract before, we should
have been glad to illustrate and confirm our own views by those of this
highly gifted prelate. We earnestly recommend the tract in question
(as well as the whole of the remarkable volume in which it is now
incorporated, 'Essays on some of the Peculiarities of the Christian
Religion') to the perusal of our readers, and at the same time venture
to express our conviction (having been led by the circumstances above
mentioned to a fuller acquaintance with his Grace'