Many readers will agree with the Premier in calling these "astonishing assertions." Many will also speak of Strauss's positions as something worse than astonishing when they read in the Illustrative Passages (Address, p. 34) a declaration which he holds it his duty as well as his right to make without any kind of reserve.[8] Most persons will likewise agree with the Premier's further observation (p. 38):--"I have made a statement that these ideas are not a mere German brood, though I fear that we owe much of their seed to Germany, as France owed to England the seed of her great Voltairian movement, so far as it was a movement grounded in the region of thought." In illustration of the statement that "there are many writers of kindred sympathies in England, and some of as outspoken courage" (Address, p. 26), Mr. Gladstone quotes four passages from Mr. Winwood Reade's "Martyrdom of Man." The three first cited possess a painful interest for the Natural Theologian. They are as follows:--(1.) "When the faith in a personal God is extinguished; when prayer and praise are no longer to be heard; when the belief is universal that with the body dies the soul; then the false morals of theology will no longer lead the human mind astray." (2.) "We teach that the soul is immortal; we teach that there is a future life; we teach that there is a Heaven in the ages far away: but not for us single corpuscles, not for us dots of animated jelly, but for the One of whom we are the elements, and who, though we perish, never dies." (3.) "God is so great that He does not deign to have personal relations with us human atoms that are called men. Those who desire to worship their Creator must worship Him through mankind. Such, it is plain, is the scheme of Nature." (pp. 38-9.) On account of his Address and _pièces justificatives_, Mr. Gladstone has been already (like a prophet of old) "wounded in the house of his friends." It may therefore be well to support his judgment by some additional testimony. Now the _Pall Mall Gazette_, whatever faults may be imputed to it by its adversaries, cannot be justly charged with harshness or discourtesy towards materializing writers. And it so happens that both Dr. Strauss and Mr. Reade have lately been criticised in its columns. From these notices, therefore, I shall venture on making some extracts. Strauss's "Der Alte und der Neue Glaube" was reviewed at considerable length in the number for November 27, 1872. I quote two passages only. After an interesting introduction the reviewer proceeds thus:--