* * * * *

"Mr. OWEN'S exposition and refutation of the hallucination and
mythical theories of Strauss and his followers is most admirable, and
all should read it who desire to know exactly what excuses men make
for their incredulity. The work also contains many beautiful
passages on the discomfort of unbelief, and the holy pleasure of a
settled faith, which cannot fail to benefit the reader."

On the other hand, in spite of all my precautions, the same
misfortune which overtook Erewhon has also come upon The Fair Haven.
It has been suspected of a satirical purpose. The author of a
pamphlet entitled Jesus versus Christianity says:-

"The Fair Haven is an ironical defence of orthodoxy at the expense of
the whole mass of Church tenet and dogma, the character of Christ
only excepted. Such at least is our reading of it, though critics of
the Rock and Record order have accepted the book as a serious defence
of Christianity, and proclaimed it as a most valuable contribution in
aid of the faith. Affecting an orthodox standpoint it most bitterly
reproaches all previous apologists for the lack of candour with which
they have ignored or explained away insuperable difficulties and
attached undue value to coincidences real or imagined. One and all
they have, the author declares, been at best, but zealous 'liars for
God,' or what to them was more than God, their own religious system.
This must go on no longer. We, as Christians having a sound cause,
need not fear to let the truth be known. He proceeds accordingly to
set forth the truth as he finds it in the New Testament; and in a
masterly analysis of the account of the Resurrection, which he