the clear-headed legislator; "but there is a great difference. Those d fools down yonder believe in it!"
It is this unfaltering "believing in it," nevertheless, that is at once the source of Mr. Spurgeon's weakness and of his strength. When Robespierre made his first appearance in the Assembly, he was derided by all but Mirabeau, who, more discerning, observed, "That man will go far: he believes every word he says." So it is with Mr. Spurgeon. He has gone a long way, and will continue to go a long way; for he believes ever}' word he says. So has it been with Newman, who, firmly mooring his bark to the rock of papal infallibility, has become a prince of the Roman Church. One only requires to shut one's eyes and walk by faith in order to achieve great things; yet there are disadvantages connected with this contemning of one's sight. I have, for example, been at pains to glance at most of the productions of Mr. Spurgeon's prolific pen, and I can find nothing that does not bear an utterly ephemeral impress. His mind, it is true, is thoroughly saturated with the ideas and the literature of the Hebrew race,—the least scientific of all the great nations of antiquity; but I cannot discover that he is abreast of any other kind of knowledge. The sacred writings of other peoples are seemingly sealed books to him. Neither by the development hypothesis, nor by the comparative historical method,—the two great clarifiers of modern thinking,—has Mr. Spurgeon apparently benefited in the least.
In a lecture on "The Study of Theology," delivered before the Young Men's Christian Association at Newington, he explained the manner in which he dealt with
