es, what is now a reasonable exercise of faith may one
day be rewarded by a knowledge which on those particular points may
terminate it. And, in such ways, it is surely conceivable that a great
part of the objections against Revelation may, in time, disappear; and,
though other objections may be the result of the progress of the other
sciences or the origination of new, the solution of previous objections,
together with the additions to the evidences of Christianity, external
and internal, which the study of history and of the Scriptures
may supply, and the still brighter light cast by the progress of
Christianity and the fulfilment of its prophecies, may inspire
increasing confidence that the new objections are also destined to yield
to similar solvents. Meanwhile, such new difficulties, and those more
awful and gigantic shadows which we have no reason to believe will ever
be chased from the sacred page,--mysteries which probably could not be
explained from the necessary limitation of our faculties, and are,
at all events, submitted to us as a salutary discipline of our
humility,--will continue to form that exercise of faith which is
probably nearly equal in every age--and necessary in all ages, if we
would be made 'little children,' qualified 'to enter the kingdom of
God.'

____

+ It contains, let us recollect, (after all causes of changes, including
a conquest, have been at work upon it,) a vast majority of the Saxon
words spoken in the time of Alfred--nearly a thousand years ago!

____

In conclusion we may remark, that while many are proclaiming that
Christianity is effete, and that, in the language of Mr. Proudhon (who
complacently says it amidst the ignominious failure of a thousand social
panaceas or his own age and country), it will certainly 'die out in
about three hundred years;' and while many more proclaim that, as a
religion of supernatural origin and supernatural evidence, it is already
dying, if not dead; we must beg leave to remind them that, even if
'Christianity be false, as they allege, they are utterly forgetting the
maxims of a cautious induction in saying that it will therefore cease to
exert dominion over mankind. What proof is there of this? Whether
true or false, it has already survived numberless revolutions of human
opinions, and all sorts of changes and assaults. It is not confined,
like other religions, to any one race--to any one clime--or any one form
of political constitution. Wh