moderation of true learning, joined to the uncompromising adherence to the Christian faith. The history now given, of the doubt which is expressed at present through the English language, completes the account of the fourth great crisis of belief in church history;(994) and with it we bring to an end our long survey of the history of free thought. ------------------------------------- Since the commencement of the second lecture, we have been so involved in the details of the investigation, that, to those who have lost sight of the plan proposed in the commencement, the lectures may have appeared historical rather than controversial, and hardly compatible with the purpose of the founder of the Lecture. We have been like travellers moving in a tangled plain, where the path at times seems lost. Before entering upon it, we took our stand, as it were, on an eminence; and indicated the plan of the route; pointed to the kind of territory through which it would conduct us, and the direction to which it would tend. Now, that we have at last extricated ourselves from its windings, and rest after our journey, let us cast a glance backward over its course, and see how far the result has verified our anticipations. Let us reconsider the purpose designed by this course of inquiry; notice how far the promises in respect to it have been fulfilled; show its relation to controversial purpose; and collect the moral lessons which are derivable. It will be remembered that we stated(995) the topic to be, a critical history of free thought in Europe in relation to the Christian religion. Our criticism started from a Christian point of view, and assumed alike the miraculous character of Christianity, the exceptional character of the religious inspiration of the first teachers of it, and the reality of its chief doctrines. From this point of view we proposed to consider the attempts of the human mind to get free from the authority of the Christian religion, either by rejecting it in whole or in part.(996) Four great crises of faith were enumerated in church history;(997) the first, the struggle, literary and philosophical, of early heathenism against Christianity;(998) the second, the reawakening of free thought in the middle ages;(999) the third, that which appertained to the revival of classical literature;(1000) the fourth, to the growth of modern philosophy;(1001)—a series of epochs which exhibit the struggle of Christianity in the great centres of thought and civilization, ancient or modern; and it was proposed that our investigation should not only contain a chronicle of the facts, but explain the causes, and teach the moral.(1002) We considered that the causes which make thought develope into unbelief are chiefly two,—the emotional and the intellectual;(1003) and, while vindicating distinctness of operation for the intellectual under certain circumstances,(1004) yet we allowed the union of them with