পাতা:তত্ত্ববোধিনী পত্রিকা (তৃতীয় কল্প তৃতীয় খণ্ড).pdf/১২

$8 ιγ reach of priestly rancour as of friendly criticism and eulogy. But the three remaining criminuls, the Reverend Messrs. Wilson, Jowett, and Williams; they as least have spoken out firmly and with no uncertain sound. To say that they are infidels, or favourers of infidelity is to say an untruth, so far as the fact can be discernod from their writings. They simply refuse to accept every of wife's fable as inspiration, and insist upon ascertaining how much of the Scriptures is revealed truth, how much the accumulations and incrustations of ignorance and eredulity. It is all very well for Soapy Sam to denounce the entire serven and to call for faggots, but the only effect of his intemperate zeal has been to create an almost unparallelપો demand for the obnoxious book. Five edi. tions in twelve mouths of a really dry and somewhat repellant work shows how widely diffused must be the germs of doubt. If people really believed in the religion they profess, they would tourn with disgust from the idea of reading a book that denied any articles of their faith, or even implied the possibility of the prophets being sometimes dreamers, or under the influence of opinion. But here we have a heavy, uninviting volume scrambled for, because it. '. supposed, though erroneously, to upset the doctrine of atonement and indeed all the articles of the Christian faith, Poor Dr Tait wrings his hands piteously over his dear friend Dr. Temple, but warms into kindly indignation when that abominable “ Oxon’’ declares the whole seven to be equally wrong, and accuses the whole boiling of them of inculcating infidel dotstrines. Such relaarks, obseryes good “London,” are unwarranted. Messrs. Longman will, I dare say, forgive the Saponaceous One, for they purchased the copyright of old Parker, at the lamented death of his son, and a right good thing they are making of it. tııı, Exc;LashMAN, APRI1, 10, 1861. ,-----— . CO R. R. E S P O N l) E N C F. From FRANCIs W. NkwMAN Esą, to tri f, BRAHMA SAMAJ ** * THROUGH THEIR SECRETARIES. Dated London, 10 Circus Road, 2nd March 1861. Dear Gentlemen, o ln reply to your acceptable letter of January "9th I will first state the facts of England and তত্ত্ববোধিনা"পঞ্জিকা Europe, (as I view them) which bear on the prospects of Theism and Theistic churches, and will state my opinion of the prospect. All our most influential literature and all the movement of mind acts in the direction of Theism. All the teachers of “orthodox” Christianity know and avow that there is no possibility of stopping between the ecclesiastical trinity and a total overthrow of the special Christian faith; and though the small sect called Unitarians (very estimable men in many cases; and a few, of eminent powers) strongly deny this, yet the sect itself looks with dread at its own leading minds, whose doctrine makes miracles un open question and vests in each of us an inspiration coordinate with that of the apostles. In this state of things, to say (what is the truth,) that very few active minded and highly educated men are orthodox trinitarians, is to say that nearly all these have thrown off all sharply-defined belief in Christianity. This is as true of England, as of the Europeans continent. پے' Nevertheless, a very small fraction of the whole are willing to say publicly, 1 am not a Christian. This is partly from unwillingness to pain friends in their our family, or to lose the friendship and society of accomplished men, the higher clergy and others; partly, because: they might damage their political prospects: partly, because they do sincerely reverence much in Christianity, and (unless they have given years of study to it, or are hard and clear thinkers) perhaps they have not finally renounced the possibility, that there may be something in it of the preternatural. - You are aware that a comparatively large number of writers in the last dozen years have avowed themselves, with their names, as cssential unbelievers in thế preternatural claims of Christianity. You ask, whether there is any outward union between them, or other rise of a Theistic Church. I reply, there is none; nor do I think a church could rise thus. They differ too much among themselves, they live in places too distant, and they will not risk the mortification of entering an organic society from which they might soon wish again to break away. And I fear that a majority of these writers know what they disbelieve, much better. than how much they believe. They have sed