rks a great amount of information about infidelity, of the
most melancholy, but of the most interesting and important character.
This Autobiography of Mr. Mill I propose to review. I meant to review it
in this volume, but I had not room. I intend therefore to give it a
place in my next volume, which may be looked for in the course of the
year.
Another work has just been published, called _The Old Faith and the
New_. It is the last and most important work of D. F. Strauss, the
greatest and ablest advocate of antichristian and atheistic views that
the ages have produced,--the Colossus or Goliath of all the infidel
hosts of Christendom. In this work, which he calls his CONFESSION,
Strauss, like Mill, gives us a portrait of himself, exhibiting not only
his views, and the arguments by which he labors to sustain them, but the
influence of those views on the hearts, the lives, the characters, and
the enjoyments of men. If this Book can be answered,--if the arguments
of Strauss can be fairly met, and his views effectually refuted,
infidelity must suffer serious damage, and the cause of Christianity be
greatly benefited. I have gone through the Book with great care. I have
measured and weighed its arguments. And my conviction is, that the work
admits of a thorough and satisfactory refutation. If I had had space, I
should have made some remarks on it in this volume: but I had not. I
propose therefore to review it at considerable length in my next.
Some time ago Robert Owen was a prominent man in the infidel world. He
was extolled by his friends as a great Philanthropist. He too left us a
history of his life, and his son, Robert Dale Owen, has just been
repeating portions of that history in the Atlantic Monthly. It may be
interesting to my readers to know what Atheism can do in the way of
Philanthropy. We propose therefore to add a review of the Life of Robert
Owen to those of Strauss and Mill.
Robert Dale Owen himself was an Atheist formerly, and a very zealous and
able advocate of Atheistical views. He gives his articles in the
Atlantic Monthly as an autobiography, and seeks to make the impression
that he has revealed to his readers all the important facts of his
history without reserve. And he has certainly revealed some strange
things. But there are certain facts which he has _not_ revealed, facts
of great importance too, calculated to show the demoralizing tendency of
infidelity. We propose to render the autobiography
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