It is not necessary to speak particularly of the contents of the next two Sermons; except to say that the train of thought thus started conducted the author inevitably over ground which was already occupied in the public mind by a volume which had already obtained some notoriety, and which has since become altogether infamous. Enough of the contents of that unhappy production I had read to be convinced that in a literary, certainly in a _Theological_ point of view, it was a most worthless performance; and I recognized with equal sorrow and alarm that it was but the matured expression of opinions which had been fostering for years in certain quarters: opinions which, occasionally, had been ventilated from the University pulpit; or which had been deliberately advocated in print[3]; and which it was now hinted were formidably maintained, and would be found hard to answer. Astonished, (not by any means for the first time in my life,) at the apathy which seemed to prevail on questions of such vital moment, I determined at all events not to be a party to a craven silence; and denounced from the University pulpit with hearty indignation that whole system of unbelief, (if system it can be called,) which has been growing up for years among us[4]; and which, I was and am convinced, must be openly met,--not silently ignored until the mischief becomes unmanageable: met, too, by building up men in THE TRUTH: above all, by giving Theological instruction to those who are destined to become Professors of Theological Science, and are about to undertake the cure of souls.... In this spirit, I asserted the opposite fundamental verities; and so, would have been content to dismiss the "Essays and Reviews" from my thoughts for ever.