econciled the world to himself, the very description of it being a
figure of speech. Conversion is not in accordance with the claims of
orthodoxy, for while there were conversions in the early Church, there
is no possibility of establishing a harmony between them and those which
are now said to occur. The conversions of the first Christians were
marked by ecstatic and unusual phenomena, whole multitudes were
simultaneously affected, and the changes wrought were permanent; but the
subjects were chiefly ignorant people, who no doubt did many things
which would have been distasteful to us as men of education.[170]

The most noteworthy work of the Critical Rationalists is the _Essays and
Reviews_ (1861), a volume which consists of broad generalizations
against the authority of the Bible as a standard of faith.

I. THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. By Frederic Temple, D. D. There is a
radical difference between man and inanimate nature. The latter is
passive, and subject to the workings of the vast physical machinery, but
man is at no time stationary, for he develops from age to age, and
concentrates in his history the results and achievements of all
previous history. There is no real difference between the capacity of
men now and that of the antediluvian world; the ground of disparity lies
in the time of development afforded the present generation. Thus a child
of twelve stands at present where once stood the full-grown man.

There are three stages in the world's development: Childhood, Youth,
Maturity. Childhood requires positive rules, and is made subject to
them; youth is governed by the force of example; and manhood, being free
from external restraints, must be its own instructor. We have first
rules, then examples, and last principles:--the Law, the Son of Man, and
the Gift of the Spirit. The world was once a child, under tutors and
governors until the time appointed by the Father. Afterwards, when the
fit season had arrived, the Example, to which all ages should turn, was
sent to teach men what they ought to be; and the human race was left to
itself to be guided by the instruction of the Spirit within.[171] The
world, before the time of Christ, was in its childhood, when commands
were given without explanation. The pre-Christian world, being in its
state of discipline and childhood, was divided into four classes: the
Roman, the Greek, the Asiatic, and the Hebrew, each of which contributed
something toward the world's impro