or imagined contrast, the diversity of spirit which sundry
individuals have believed themselves to find in the Old Testament and
in the Gospel, that has given occasion to the doubt;--and, in the
heart of thousands who yield a faith of acquiescence to the contrary,
and find rest in their humility--supplies fuel to a fearful wish that
it were permitted to make a distinction.

But, lastly, you object that--even granting that no coercive,
positive reasons for the belief--no direct and not inferred
assertions--of the plenary inspiration of the Old and New Testament,
in the generally received import of the term, could be adduced, yet--
in behalf of a doctrine so catholic, and during so long a succession
of ages affirmed and acted on by Jew and Christian, Greek, Romish,
and Protestant, you need no other answer than:- "Tell me, first, why
it should not be received! Why should I not believe the Scriptures
throughout dictated, in word and thought, by an infallible
Intelligence?" I admit the fairness of the retort; and eagerly and
earnestly do I answer: For every reason that makes me prize and
revere these Scriptures;--prize them, love them, revere them, beyond
all other books! WHY should I not? Because the doctrine in question
petrifies at once the whole body of Holy Writ with all its harmonies
and symmetrical gradations--the flexile and the rigid--the supporting
hard and the clothing soft--the blood WHICH IS THE LIFE--the
intelligencing nerves, and the rudely woven, but soft and springy,
cellular substance, in which all are imbedded and lightly bound
together. This breathing organism, this glorious panharmonicon which
I had seen stand on its feet as a man, and with a man's voice given
to it, the doctrine in question turns at once into a colossal
Memnon's head, a hollow passage for a voice, a voice that mocks the
voices of many men, and speaks in their names, and yet is but one