is that which so often edifies
me in Christian writers and speakers, when I ever so much disbelieve
the letter of their sentences." (Phases, p. 188.)

It is unaccountably odd that the universal spiritual faculty should
act thus capriciously, and equally odd that Mr. Newman does not
perceive, that, if it were not for the "Bible," his religion would
no more have assumed the peculiar task it has, than that of Aristotle
or Cicero. Sentiments due to the still active influences of his
Christian education he imputes to the direct intuitions of spiritual
vision, just as we are apt to confound the original and acquired
perceptions of our eyesight. He is in the condition of one who
mistakes a reflected image for the object itself, or a forgotten
suggestion of another for an original idea. In the camera obscura of
his mind, he flatters himself that the colored forms there traced are
the original inscriptions on the walls, forgetful of the little
aperture which has let in the light; and not even disturbed by the
untoward phenomenon, that the ideas thus contemplated are all upside
down.

But, surely, it is natural to ask,--How is it that Greek philosophers,
Hindoo sages, Egyptian priests, English Deists,--that men of all other
religions,--having always had access to the fountain of natural
illumination within, have not also had their "Baxters, Leightons,
Watts, Doddridges"? that the whole style of thought on this subject
is so totally different in them all, by his own confession? If man
possess the "spiritual faculty" attributed to him,--if it be a
characteristic of humanity,--it will be surely generally manifested;
and even if those disturbing causes, which he and Mr. Parker so
plentifully provide, by which the genesis of religion is so
unhappily marred, but which, alas! no revelation from without can
ever counteract--prevent its uniform, or nearly uniform display,
still its principal indications (partial though they may be
everywhere) ought, at least, to be everywhere indifferently
diffused throughout the race. Its manifestation may be sporadic,
but it will be in one race as in another; it will not be suspiciously
confined to one race with a peculiarly felicitous "religious
organization," or to "two books" exclusively originating with that
favored race.

For his "spiritual" illumination, it is easy to see Mr. Newman's
exclusive dependence on that Bible which he abjures as a special
revelation. If it has not been so to mankin