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a case which has occurred within the last few months. I 
need hardly say that I allude to the article in the Quarterly 
Review of October last, entitled “ The Talmud.” The views 
of this writer respecting the morality of the New Testament 
are only a little less fallacious than those of Mr. Buckle. At 
one thing I am astonished, viz., the facility with which such 
assertions are swallowed, not only by the public, but by those 
who ought to know better. Perhaps it is to be attributed to 
an ever-increasing desire for the new and the sensational. 
I must mention one point for the purpose of proving the 
entire fallacy of the assertion that the teaching of our Lord 
contains nothing new in connection with morality. The great 
doctrine of faith, as taught by Christ and enlarged on by the 
apostles, is absolutely new. It is remarkable how much its 
importance has been overlooked as bearing on the whole 
question of moral philosophy and motivity. Our Lord uni- 
formly employs this principle as the great motive power by 
which He uniformly acted on the spiritual and moral worlds 
by which the amelioration of man from a state of degradation 
is alone rendered possible. Previously to the enunciation of 
the great doctrine of faith by our Lord, it had been unthought 
of by poet, priest, or philosopher. Our Lord announced it as 
the great motive principle, powerful to act on man's spiritual 
and moral being. Philosophers know nothing of it. Aristotle 
himself expressly asserts that- the intellect is no motive prin- 
ciple in man. But faith is an intellectual act, closely connected 
with man's spiritual and moral nature. The motive character 
of faith forms the foundation on which our Lord's spiritual and 
moral temple is erected, of which His glorious personality, as 
exhibited by faith and to faith, is the chief corner-stone. Our 
Lord proclaimed faith as the one great means of man's rege- 
neration and improvement ; and since He has proclaimed it, 
it has exerted a spiritual and moral power on man, compared 
with which all the motives with which the philosophers were 
acquainted are utterly insignificant. It is high time that a 
true moral philosophy should be created, which recognizes this 
and other great truths of which the Gospel of Christ was the 
first exponent. 
But I must return from this digression. I am a firm be- 
liever that the reign of law dominates in the realms of mind, 
and that the moral, religious, and intellectual condition of the 
individual grows out of, and is largely determined by, the 
moral; religious, and intellectual atmosphere in the midst of 
which he lives i The genius or the powers of the individual 
can only raise him above this to a certain point of elevation; 
and that not a very lofty one. The law of our progressive im- 
provement is a very slow one \ and it is lamentable to be 
