notion of Sacrifice is substituted for that of a Son yielding Himself to a Father in whom He delights.
These thoughts have reference chiefly to the New Testament. But the conviction has been fixing itself deeply in my mind that the Old Testament too ought to be read much more simply and according to the letter than we are used to read it, that we have not made its application to our individual cases more clear by overlooking its obvious national characteristics; that if we had given heed to them we should have found an interpretation of some of the greatest difficulties in history and in the condition of the world around us. This opinion is strangely opposed to that which is common among the philosophical thinkers of our day. It sets me in direct opposition to those writers, in this country and America, who make it their business to copy German models, though it does not authorize me to refuse any help from German learning when it comes within my reach, or to pronounce sentence upon a nation with which I am most imperfectly acquainted, or to generalize under one name Theologians who I suppose exhibit as many varieties of opinion, and are scattered through as many schools, as our own.
Many of my conclusions may differ widely from those into which you have been led: I should be grieved to make you responsible for them. But if I have tried in