n its relation to the
whole issue, it is one which is not so judiciously dealt with
in the discursiveness of dialogues after dinner, as in the
solitary study, with piles of huge tomes, lexicons, and
manuscripts that require a most deliberate examination.
But to leave the merits and the relative importance of this
question undebated, it might have been more generous in the
Reviewer to have confined his criticisms to a decision upon
what the author has endeavored to accomplish, instead of
impugning his judgment in the selection of the points on which
to employ his pen. How ever desirable it may be that we
should have in another form what Mr. Norton has presented
so thoroughly in his work on the Genuineness of the Gospels,
it is enough to answer to the Reviewer in the Prospective,
that the writer of this volume addressed himself to a different
course of argument, starting from other divergences of
opinion, philosophical rather than critical in their relations.
He certainly was free to select the method and the direction of
his argument, if he candidly represented the answering point
of view of those to whom he opposed himself.

Amid many episodes and interludes of fancy and narrative, it
will be found that the volume arrays its force of argument
against two of the assumptions alike of modern and of ancient
scepticism; namely, that a revelation from God to men through
the agency of a book is an unreasonable tenet of belief; and
that it is impossible that a miracle should occur, and
impossible that its occurrence should be authenticated. There
is a vigorous and logical power displayed in the discussion
of these two points. The discomfiture of those who urge these
assumptions does not of course convince all scepticism, or
substitute faith for it, but it is something to discomfit
such pleas, and to expose the fallacies which confuse the
minds of their advocates. The matters of debate are lofty,
and there is no levity in their treatment.

ADVERTISEMENT.

He who reads this book only superficially will
at once see that it is not all fiction; and he who
reads it more than superficially will as easily see
that it is not all fact. In what proportions it is
composed of either would probably require a very
acute critic accurately to determine. As the Editor
makes no pretensions to such acumen,--as
he can lay claim to only an imperfect knowledge
of the principal personage in the volume, and
never had any personal acquaintan