The work of Ezra Abbot especially deserves notice here, because of "the variety and extent of his learning, the retentiveness and accuracy of his memory, the penetration and fairness of his judgment."[11] For fourteen years previous to his death, in 1884, he was the professor of New Testament criticism and interpretation in the Harvard Divinity School. He also rendered important service as a member of the American committee on the revision of the New Testament. His essay on The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel was one of the ablest statements of the conservative view of the origin of that writing. The volume of his Critical Essays, collected after his death, shows the ripe fruits of his "punctilious and vigilant scholarship." He was a zealous Unitarian, and did much to show that the New Testament is in harmony with that faith. In 1843 Rev. Theodore Parker published his translation of De Wette's Introduction to the New Testament, with learned notes. The extreme views of Baur and Zeller were interpreted by Rev. O.B. Frothingham in his The Cradle of the Christ, 1872. Various attempts were also made by those who were not professional scholars to bring the Bible into harmony with modern religious ideas. One of the most notable of these was that of Dr. William Henry Furness, pastor of the church in Philadelphia from 1825 to 1875. His Remarks on the Four Gospels appeared in 1835, and was followed by Jesus and his Biographers, 1838, Thoughts on the Life and Character of Jesus of Nazareth, 1859, and The Veil Partly Lifted and Jesus Becoming Visible, 1864, as well as several other works. His attempt was to give a rational interpretation of the life of Jesus that should largely eliminate the miraculous and yet preserve the spiritual. These works have little critical value, and yet they have much of charm and suggestiveness as religious expositions of the Gospels. Of somewhat the same nature was Dr. Edmund H. Sears's The Fourth Gospel: The Heart of Christ, 1872, a work of deep spiritual insight. [Sidenote: The Catholic Influence of Harvard University.]