I still maintain that great good
will result from these chaotic developments; for instance, that the
impartial mind will find in them that scientific foundation for belief
in much of the supernaturalism (to repeat the absurd expression) of the
Bible, of which the age stands in such woful need. That this generation
does experience such a lack is made sufficiently apparent in the 'Essays
and Reviews.' On no other point are the noble freemen who therein and
thereby grope after the 'readjustment,' so utterly deaf, dumb, halt, and
blind, as they are in respect to Scripture miracles. In fact, these
writers cast the most wondrous of the _actae sanctorum_ to the winds.
Methinks the more thoughtful and earnest men of Christendom must, then,
assent to the proposition that we have pressing need of a new flood of
such practical phenomena as sturdy old Baxter gave to the Sadducees of
his day, in his 'Certainty of the World of Spirits.' Whether these
strange doings gradually cease, or take on new and more striking
aspects, I doubt not they will help to give a healthy vigor to our
emaciated faith in the existence of an unseen and spiritual world. Let
us not, then, utterly scorn the strange rabble who have rushed headlong
after this curiousest curiosity of modern times--except the
rebellion--even though they may remind us of 'the Queen's ragged
regiment of literature.
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