"Surely," said Mr. Stanley, "it does not diminish the utility, though it abases the pride of learning, that Christianity did not come into the world by human discovery, or the disquisitions of reason, but by immediate revelation. Those who adopt your way of thinking, Mr. Tyrrel, should bear in mind that the work of God, in changing the heart, is not intended to supply the place of the human faculties. God expects, in his most highly favored servants, the diligent exercise of their natural powers; and if any human being has a stronger call for the exercise of wisdom and judgment than another, it is a religious clergyman. Christianity does not supersede the use of natural gifts, but turns them into their proper channel. "One distinction has often struck me. The enemy of mankind seizes on the soul through the medium of the passions and senses: the divine friend of man addresses him through his rational powers--_the eyes of your understanding being enlightened_, says the Apostle." Here I ventured to observe, that the highest panegyric bestowed on one of the brightest luminaries of our church is, that his name is seldom mentioned without the epithet _judicious_ being prefixed to it. Yet does Hooker want fervor? Does Hooker want zeal? Does Hooker want courage in declaring the whole counsel of God? "I hope," said Sir John, "we have now no clergymen to whom we may apply the biting sarcasm of Dr. South on some of the popular but illiterate preachers of the opposite party in his day, 'that there was all the confusion of Babel without the gift of tongues.'" "And yet," returned Mr. Stanley, "that party produced some great scholars, and many eminently pious men. But look back to that day, and especially to the period a little antecedent to it, at those prodigies of erudition, the old bishops and other divines of our church. They were, perhaps, somewhat too profuse of their learning in their discourses, or rather they were so brimful, that they involuntarily overflowed. A juster taste, in our time, avoids that lavish display which then not only crowded the margin, but forced itself into every part of the body of the work. The display of erudition might be wrong, but one thing is clear, it proved they had it; and, as Dryden said, when he accused of having too much wit, 'after all, it is a good crime.'"