s
absolute truth."[44] "It bows to no idols, neither the Church, nor the
Bible, nor yet Jesus, but God only; its Redeemer is within; its
salvation within; its heaven and its oracle of God."[45] The whole
strain of this school of writers and their disciples is one of
depreciation of external revelation, and of exaltation of the inner
light which every man is supposed to carry within him. Religion is "no
Morrison's pill from without," but a "clearing of the inner light," a
"reawakening of our own selves from within."[46] So Mr. Newman[47]
abundantly argues that an authoritative book revelation of moral and
spiritual truth is impossible, that God reveals himself within us and
not without us, and that a revelation of all moral and religious truth
necessary for us to know is to be obtained by _insight_, or gazing into
the depths of our own consciousness. The sum of the whole business is,
that neither God nor man can reveal any religious truth to our minds, or
as Parker felicitously expresses it, "on his word, or as his second, be
he who he may, I can accept nothing."

Now, we are tempted to ask, Who are these wonderful prodigies, so
incapable of receiving instruction from anybody? And to our amazement we
learn, that some forty odd years ago they made their appearance among
mankind as little squalling babies, without insight enough to know their
own names, or where they came from, and were actually dependent on an
external revelation, from their nurses, for sense enough to find their
mothers' breasts. And as they grew a little larger, they obtained the
power of speaking articulate sounds by external revelation, hearing and
imitating the sounds made by others. Further, upon a memorable day,
they had a "book revelation" made to them, in the shape of a penny
primer, and were initiated into the mysteries of A, B, C, by "the
instructions of another, be he who he may." There was absolutely not the
least "insight," or "spiritual faculty," or "self-consciousness" in one
of them, by which they then could, or ever to this hour did, "find true
within them" any sort of necessary connection between the signs, c, a,
t--d, o, g--and the sounds _cat_, _dog_, or any other sounds represented
by any other letters of the alphabet. Faith in the word of their
teachers is absolutely the sole foundation and only source of their
ability to read and write. On "the word of another, and as his second,
be he who he may," every one of them has accepted ev