the last five years'
importation. Parker claimed that the liberal or Rationalistic thinkers
were largely on the increase; but he also informs us that the
translation by himself of _De Wette's Introduction to the Old
Testament_, not only proved a financial failure, but that it has had "no
recognition nor welcome in America; that it has never had a friendly
word said for it in any American journal."[279] Skepticism has been
proclaimed principally by public lectures, and, in this form, has made
little pretension to logical, exegetical, or metaphysical power. Youths
have manifested a decided taste for the works of Carlyle, Emerson, and
Parker, while the _Phases of Faith_ is one of the most thumb-worn of all
the volumes of our circulating libraries. Yet American Rationalism still
lacks consistency and system.

The history of Rationalism proves that the evil is of slow and insidious
growth. The young are most susceptible of its influence. The Sunday
Schools of the various evangelical Churches are usually supplied with
large libraries of religious books. But many works of pernicious
tendency have been known to find a place upon shelves designed for
better service.

A recent juvenile publication of skeptical character has probably been
read by many children whose parents had taught them that all Scripture
is given by inspiration of God.[280] This neat and attractive little
volume is worthy of the disciples of Paulus and Semler. It is an
advocate, under the most fascinating garb, of the very Rationalism which
now threatens the American Church. The author claims that the
patriarchal history is made up of little scraps of poetry; the fall of
our first parents was their seeing a dark veil one day in their
wandering, and they, in consequence thereof, went out of the pleasant
place where they had been dwelling; the deluge was simply a metaphorical
description of the increase of evil among men; the ark was only a
mystical vessel typifying faith, truth, and other correctives of sorrow
and sin; "there never was a single man Noah, who put all those creatures
into a boat and saved himself;" no sacrifice appeared to Abraham when
about to offer Isaac, but "his lifted arm seems to be seized as by the
hand of an angel;" the crossing of the Red Sea by Israel, and the
destruction of Pharaoh and his host, were the natural results of tide
and storm; the bitter waters were sweetened by a friendly weed that grew
close at hand; the speaking of Bal