23 ? 
those religious principles which, without such stimulus, he would never have 
understood.” 
The fallacies in this passage are enormous. No intelligent 
Christian, I apprehend, ever means to gainsay the importance 
of a development of the intellect as a preparation for the 
reception of Christianity. To do so would be to treat with 
contempt the course of training to which the providence of 
God subjected the Pagan world before the Gospel of Christ 
appeared in the fulness of the times. In the course of 
Divine Providence, and under the influence of the preparation 
which it effected, Christianity was, in the earliest stages of its 
growth, preached to one of the most intelligent races of men. 
The importance of an intellectual preparation every intelligent 
Christian will fully concede to Mr. Buckle. 
But what does he mean when he speaks of a barbarous 
country ? The expression is extremely indefinite. Does he 
mean by the term “ barbarian ” a man sunk to the lowest 
level to which man has ever degenerated ; or a race like the 
New Zealander, or the Polynesian, or the German barbarian, 
when he rushed on the Roman empire, and by the infusion of 
his blood regenerated its worn-out races ; or the ancestors of 
the modern Magyar, or the Russian ? Or again, what does he 
mean by the expression, “ being permanently converted to 
Christianity ” ? In one sense of that term no nation ever has 
been permanently converted to Christianity — in the sense of 
every member of it having become perfectly obedient to the 
law of Christ, or perfectly comprehending the whole of its 
sublime teaching. I quite agree with Mr. Buckle that “ the 
rites and forms of religion lie on the surface. It is the 
deeper and inward change which alone is durable.” I again 
ask in what sense does Mr. Buckle use this term ? for if he 
employs it in the sense of the full embodiment of the Chris- 
tian law in the national life, he is only stating a truism. But, 
however he may have confused himself, his language conveys 
a very different meaning. I apprehend that he really pledges 
his historical knowledge to the fact that Christianity has 
never been permanently embraced by an uncivilized people — 
a people, in fact, which can be designated by the vague but 
popular term “ barbarous,” unless they have been subjected 
by the missionaries who have preached to them to a long 
course of intellectual training, and he attributes every appear- 
ance to the contrary to a species of bribery systematically 
pursued by zealous but mistaken men. Although Mr. 
Buckle's pages are encumbered with notes and with refer- 
ences, it is a singular fact that the page in which this charge 
is made is destitute of any. The whole of Mr. Buckle's mis- 
