It was their own loss, however, that they did not reach the interior; for there they would have found themselves in the presence of one of the greatest of Theological intellects. Black and Cavendish were born ready-made chemists, and Linnaeus and Cuvier were naturalists, in spite of themselves; and so, there is a mental conformation which almost necessitated Augustine and Athanasius, Calvin and Arminius, to be dogmatists and systematic divines. With the opposite aptitudes for large generalization and subtile distinction, as soon as some master-principle had gained possession of their devout understandings, they had no greater joy than to develop its all-embracing applications, and they sought to subjugate Christendom to its imperial ascendency. By itself, the habit of lofty contemplation would have made them pietists or Christian psalmists, and a mere turn for definition would have made them quibblers or schoolmen; but the two united, and together animated by a strenuous faith, made them theologians. In such intellects the seventeenth century abounded, but we question if in dialectic skill, guided by sober judgment, and in extensive acquirements, mellowed by a deep spirituality, it yielded an equivalent to Dr. Owen. Although there is only one door to the kingdom of heaven, there is many an entrance to scientific divinity. There is the gate of Free Inquiry as well as the gate of Spiritual Wistfulness. And although there are exceptional instances, on the whole we can predict what school the new-comer will join, by knowing the door through which he entered. If from the wide fields of speculation he has sauntered inside the sacred inclosure; if he is an historian who has been carried captive by the documentary demonstration--or a poet who has been arrested by the spiritual sentiment--or a philosopher who has been won over by the Christian theory, and who has thus made a hale-hearted entrance within the precincts of the faith,--he is apt to patronize that gospel to which he has given his accession, and like Clemens Alexandrinus, or Hugo Grotius, or Alphonse de Lamartine, he will join that school where Taste and Reason alternate with Revelation, and where ancient classics and modern sages are scarcely subordinate to the "men who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." On the other hand, if "fleeing from the wrath to come," through the crevice of some "faithful saying," he has struggled into enough of knowledge to calm his conscience and give him peace with Heaven, the oracle which assured his spirit will be to him unique in its nature and supreme in its authority, and, a debtor to that scheme to which he owes his very self, like Augustine, and Cowper, and Chalmers, he will join that school where Revelation is absolute, and where "Thus saith the Lord" makes an end of every matter. And without alleging that a long process of personal solicitude is the only right commencement of the Christian life, it is worthy of remark that the