84 
on questions as to which ordinary Englishmen are very 
tolerant. But the question now at issue is no other and no 
less than this,— father, child, husband, wife, brother, sister, 
master, servant, citizen, trader, or whatever other relation 
there may be between man and man, — is there any, 1 will not 
say hope or even possibility for a future life, but is there any 
real basis of right and wrong, is there any morality, is con- 
science a mere accident of brain-formation, is there any 
responsibility— nay, is there any reason, excepting a vague 
idea of inconvenient consequences, why unbridled licentious- 
ness should not run riot, not only in the streets, but in our 
families ?— Nay, why should there be that monopoly called a 
family ? In what respect, if at all, does man differ from the 
beast that perisheth? Is he, after all, only a more highly 
developed and more perfectly organized brute ? It will be my 
business to put these questions plainly and simply, avoiding 
technical expressions, and in plain English, to ask our country- 
men to look these things in the face, and to say whether they 
will have them. e 
We have spoken of the existence of a chronic state ot war- 
fare. I shall not attempt to account for its present condition, 
nor to define the share to be attributed to German philosophy, 
to French indifference, to English materialism, or whatever 
else may be supposed to exercise influence. The. warfare 
exists — it is carried on by allied forces, themselves m many 
things discordant, but agreeing in waging incessant warfare 
against Holy Scripture ; and some of them boldly, advancing 
to practical if not avowed Atheism. We may divide these 
forces into three principal arms : Historical Criticism Physics 
—and Metaphysics. . 
Historical criticism labours to overthrow the credit of -tloly 
Scripture with an almost inconceivable diligence. All the 
resources of immense learning have been brought to bear upon 
the language of those ancient books. Every .memorial of 
antiquity has been eagerly ransacked to find, if it might be, 
some conflicting fact. The simple, artless Hebrew words an 
statements have been treated as men would construe hostile 
Acts of Parliament in the effort to extract some contradictory 
meaning. It has seemed to give zest and pungency to the 
researches of the geologist when he thought himself on the 
track of some discovery which might clash with a real or sup- 
posed Biblical statement. 
If a book could have been overthrown, this Book must have 
fallen overwhelmed and ruined. No book in the world is so 
vulnerable to all appearance. It lays itself open at every 
point. It is full of history, topography, antiquities, both social 
