as "he has no hope who never had a fear." Well, in my short
day and in my own small way I seem to have been through everything, and
there was a time when I was much worried with uninvited difficulties and
involuntary unbeliefs. Such troublesome thoughts seemed to come to me
without my wish or will,--and stayed too long with me for my peace:
however, I searched them out and fought them down, and cleared my brain
of such poisonous cobwebs by writing my "Probabilities, an Aid to
Faith;" a small treatise on the antecedent likelihood of everything that
has happened, which did me great good while composing it, and has (to my
happy knowledge from many grateful letters) enlightened and comforted
hundreds of unwilling misbelievers. The book, after four editions, has
now long been out of print; however, certainly I still wish it was in
the hands of modern sceptics for their good. The scheme of the treatise
is briefly this: I begin by showing the antecedent probability of the
being of a God, then of His attributes, and by inference from His
probable benevolence, of His becoming a Creator: then that the created
being inferior to His perfection might fall, in which event His
benevolence would find a remedy. But what remedy? That Himself should
pay the penalty, and effect a full redemption. How? By becoming a
creature, and so lifting up the race to Himself through so generous a
condescension. I show that it was antecedently probable that the
Divinity should come in humble form, not to paralyse our reason by
outward glories,--that He might even die as a seeming malefactor; this
was the guess of Socrates: and that for the trial of our faith there are
likely to be permitted all manner of difficulties and mysteries for us
to gain personal strength by combating and living them down. Many other
topics are touched in this suggestive little treatise, whereanent a few
critiques are available; as thus, "The author has done good service to
religion by this publication: it will shake the doubts of the sceptical,
strengthen the trust of the wavering, and delight the faith of the
confirmed. As its character becomes known, it will deservedly fill a
high place in the estimation of the Christian world."--_Britannia._ And
similarly of other English journals, while the Americans were equally
favourable. Take this characteristic instance, one of many: the
_Brooklyn Eagle_ maintains that "the author is one of the rare men of
the age; he turns up thoughts a