me with a few of the reasons which prevented his taking refuge in the
"half-way houses" between the Bible and Religious Scepticism. Mr. Fellowes
was an attentive listener. Harrington had entitled his paper,--

REASONS FOR DECLINING THE VIA MEDIA BETWEEN REVEALED RELIGION AND
ATHEISM--OR SCEPTICISM WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE THEORIES OF
MR. THEODORE PARKER AND MR. FRANCIS NEWMAN.

I shall be brief; not being solicitous to suggest doubts to others,
but merely to justify my own.

Both Mr. Parker and Mr. Newman make themselves very merry with a
"book-revelation," as they call it; and if they had given any thing
better,--more rational or more certain than the Bible,--how gladly
could I have joined in the ridicule! As it is, I doubt the solidity
of the theories they support, and hardly doubt that, if the principles
on which they reject the Bible be sound, they ought to go much farther.
Both affirm the absurdity of a special external revelation to man;
both, that the fountain of spiritual illumination is exclusively
from within, and not from without. A few brief citations will set
this point in a clear light. "Religion itself." says Mr. Parker,
"must be the same thing in each man; not a similar thing, but just
the same; differing only in degree."* "The Idea of God, as a fact
given in man's nature, is permanent and alike in all; while the
sentiment of God, though vague and mysterious, is always the same in
itself." (ibid. p. 21)--"Of course, then, there is no difference but
of words between revealed Religion and natural Religion; for all actual
Religion is revealed in us, or it could not be felt." (ibid. p. 33). The
Absolute Religion, which he affirms to be universally known, he defines
as "Voluntary Obedience to the Law of God,--inward and outward Obedience