perhaps, than the age is
altogether willing to acknowledge. At various periods from the time of
the Puritans to the present, our stock of sacred literature has received
additions of incalculable value. So vast and varied have our stores
become at length, that an investigator of the present day can scarcely
expect to find a neglected spot where he may enjoy the luxury of
cultivating virgin soil: so ably, moreover, have our predecessors
fulfilled their tasks, that a modern inquirer, obliged to deal with
familiar themes, cannot console himself with the expectation of dealing
with them to better purpose. It does not follow, however, that a
contribution to the literature of theology is useless, because it
neither touches a new theme, nor treats an old more ably.

The literature of one century, whether sacred or common, will not, when
served up in the lump, satisfy the craving and sustain the life of
another. The nineteenth century must produce its own literature, as it
raises its own corn, and fabricates its own garments. The intellectual
and spiritual treasures of the past should indeed be reverently
preserved and used; but they should be used as seed. Instead of
indolently living on the stores which our fathers left, we should cast
them into the ground, and get the product fresh every season--old, and
yet ever new. The intellectual and spiritual life of an age will wither,
if it has nothing wherewith to sustain itself, but the food which grew
in an earlier era; it must live on the fruits that grow in its own time,
and under its own eye.

Nor will a servile imitation of the ancient masters suffice. A mere
reproduction, for example, of the Puritan theology would not be suitable
in our day; while the truth, which constitutes its essence, remains the
same, it must be cast in the moulds of modern thought, and tinged with
the hues of modern experience.

Engineers surveying for a railway lay down the line level, or as nearly
level as the configuration of the surface will permit; but an engineer's
level is not a straight line; it is the segment of a circle,--that
circle being the circumference of the globe. The line which practically
constitutes a level bends downwards continually as it goes forward,
following the form of the earth, and at every point being at right
angles to the radius. If it were produced in an absolutely straight
line, it would, in the course of a few miles, be high and dry above the
surface of the earth, an