the triumph of truth; inspiring good will,
humane affections, philanthropic activity, and personal holiness; faith
in God as the Father of man--man's universal Saviour and inspirer--man's
merit consists wholly in being his child and the pupil of his grace in
nature, life, the church, and the unseen world--these are the permanent
articles of Christian faith, which is not so much faith in Christ, as
Christ's faith."[260]

It is difficult to conceive how the most of the speakers at the
anniversary in question could have better served the interests of a bold
and unmitigated system of Rationalism. The great evil of the day is
declared to be dogmatism, against which every true friend of progress
must deal his most destructive blows. Liberal minds must break loose
from the fetters of authority, and give play to their own infallible
reason. The Protestant evangelical church is placed upon the same
footing with Romanism; both of which organizations unchurch all who do
not conform to their creed. "The truth is," says a speaker, "this
Protestant evangelical church is in the same chronic delusion as its
enemy, the Roman Catholic church; it can propose no plan of Christian
union which will include the Christians of the country. Its only idea of
union is the conspiracy of a few sects to take the kingdom of heaven by
violence; monopolize its honors in this world and the world to come; and
either compel the rest of mankind to come into its arrangement, or be
turned into everlasting perdition--a proceeding which the American
people, with due respect to the undeniable rights of this church, begs
leave respectfully to decline,--and further to intimate, that it is not
at all alarmed about the eternal consequences of a refusal to accede to
the pretensions of an ecclesiasticism that assumes to be God's
vicegerent to the United States of America."[261]

Great fault is found with the doctrines of the plenary inspiration of
the Scriptures, and the efficacy of Christ's blood for man's salvation.
God is in man; and man's moral instincts, intellectual mould, and
spiritual senses are infinitely wiser than we conceive them to be. They
are infallible in what they say of God, and are the best criteria of
truth. How much the world has been given up to the worship of the Bible!
"The Bibles will be left here to burn in the general conflagration with
the other temporary representations of the Word of God, which is the
eternal Reason, the foundation of o