BY REV. F. H. HEDGE, D. D., 12mo. $2.00.

"ON every theme, DR. HEDGE evinces a profound earnestness of purpose, choice and well digested erudition, and a style of great dignity and weight. His volume will commend itself to contemplative and thoughtful minds.”—New York Tribune.

"The volume can hardly be opened at any page without impressing the reader with the advantage the author enjoys in being master of the scholarship and literature of the subject he discusses."-Boston Transcript.

"It is everywhere regarded as one of the most important contributions that have been made to the religious literature of our country."-Christian Inquirer.

THE LIFE OF HORACE MANN.

By his Wife. Octavo. Elegantly printed and bound. Extra cloth, gilt top. $3.00.

"It is a sterling Biography, which no educated American can afford not to read. It is only partial praise to call the book deeply interesting. It vivifies and inspires."-Atlantic Monthly.

"The long and useful life of HORACE MANN finds a suitable memorial in the biography prepared by his wife. .. Massachusetts owes much of the perfection of her system of education to the untiring and intelligent labor of HORACE MANN, and it is peculiarly interesting to trace, through his own correspondence, the gradual progress he made, during long series of years, in his grand enterprises."-New York Evening Post.

NEW EDITION OF

PARKER'S

PRAYERS.

Elegant 16mo. Fine Steel Portrait, $1.25.

PHILOSOPHY AS ABSOLUTE SCIENCE. Founded on the Universal Laws of Being, and including Ontology, Theology, and Psychology, made one, as Spirit, Soul, and Body. By E. L. and A. L. FROTHINGHAM

The Ontological System, comte in itself, and now ready. Octavo, elegantly printed and substa tally bound. $3.50.

"It deserves to be carefully read ar deeply pondered, for it is a well considered and powerful attempt to reinst te Philosophy on its ancient spiritual throne, and restore to it its supremacy over the minds and the lives of men."North American Review.

All our Books are sent free by mail, on receipt of the price. We have just issued a new Catalogue of all our publications, which will be sent on application to

WALKER, FULLER & CO., Publishers,

BOSTON.

A REMARKABLE BIOGRAPHY.

LIFE AND LETTERS

OF

REV. F. W. ROBERTSON.

THIRD EDITION. 2 VOLS. 12мo. $4.00.

This work is the biography of a remarkable man, gathered mainly from his letters and private journals. Its subject, Rev. F. W. Robertson, was a type of the best English character. Though by parental influence and by conviction a member of the Church of England, he interpreted its articles of faith in a spirit of genuine liberality and Christian catholicity. Strenuous in advocacy of truth, he yet more strenuously inculcated that charity which is better than any intellectual truth.

These volumes contain the full record of his career, the circumstances of his early youth; his passion for a military life, which he reluctantly, but thoroughly, put aside to gratify the wishes of his father; the scope, thoroughness, and enthusiasm of his study at Oxford; the high spirit and purpose with which he entered on his career as a minister; his labors, trials, and success at Winchester and Cheltenham; and, in full detail, his heroic struggle at Brighton, — a struggle against the bitter prejudices of the aristocratic and illiberal portion of his own church and of the citizens, -against the assumption of those who claimed to be the special depositaries of truth,— against the indifference of the rich to the condition of the poor, against the atheistic views of the Workingmen, in whose behalf he labored so arduously, and most of whom loved him as a benefactor; and describe the eloquence and practical power of his Sermons and Lectures, the thorough unselfishness of his character, and his too early death.

We invite attention to the following Notices of the Press:

"The character it exhibits is one of the most striking of this age, and the work it records will have lasting effect on posterity. . . There is something here for all kinds of readers, but the higher a man's mind, and the more general his sympathies, the keener will be his interest in the life of Robertson."— London Athenæum.

"No biography of late has met with such a universal and enthusiastic welcome. The example which it presents of a truly manly man ;- a man of masculine courage and womanly affection ;a man with the boldness of the free-thinker in speculation, and the devotion of the saint in feeling; - a man who loved nothing so well as truth, but whose passion for truth was softened by a tender reverence; a man with sublime faith in the future, but alive to all the sacred associations of the past; a man who blended with the most strenuous radicalism in regard to everything false, unjust, and unfriendly to humanity, a truly conservative spirit in behalf of all that is august, venerable, and ennobling in the traditions of ages, such an example is singularly attractive to the imagination, and full of all sweet and wholesome influences."—N. Y. Tribune.

"A man remarkable not only for the graces of his personal character, but for his position as a representative of certain conspicuous tendencies of modern thought. In his love of humanity and freedom, we need not say he has our most cordial sympathies. His views of theology are certainly open to criticism; but we should be untrue to our name if we failed to recognize his noble independence in the pursuit of truth and the expression of ideas." — The Independent.

"The life portrayed is a remarkable one, in more than one respect, but chiefly as the development of a broad and strong, but singularly fine and pure nature, in an intense effort after, not truth in the abstract only, but the highest style of manhood and usefulness."- Hartford Press.

"To say the least, we regard Mr. Robertson as one of the greatest teachers of the age. His character as a man, a Christian, and teacher, as disclosed in these volumes, will exercise a wide and beneficial influence."- St. John (N. B.) Colonial Presbyterian.

"We can recall now no collection of letters which can be compared with these for comprehensiveness of matter, felicity of diction, and elevation of tone and sentiment, in discussing alike the commonplace and the loftiest themes of didactic and spiritual religion, under the most vitalized and intense dealing with it in our modern life."— Atlantic Monthly [REV. GEORGE E. ELLIS]

SERMONS. By REV. F. W. ROBERTSON. Five volumes. 12mo. $1.50 each volume. Sold separately or in sets.

The almost unanimous judgment of the press respecting these Sermons is fairly stated by Prof. Henry B. Smith, of Union Theological Seminary, in "Hours at Home": "For originality, force, clearness of diction, close contact with the minds and hearts of men, and impressive eloquence, these discourses are acknowledged to stand in the very front rank of modern pulpit oratory." LECTURES AND ADDRESSES on LITERARY AND

SOCIAL TOPICS. By REV. F. W. ROBERTSON. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.50. Any of these books sent, prepaid, to any address, on receipt of the advertised price by the Publishers.

TICKNOR & FIELDS, Boston.

I.

II.

CONTENTS, No. VII.

The Adequacy of Natural Religion. Samuel Johnson.
Found. From Goethe. E. F.

237

243

VII. Per Tribulationes Perfectum. George Howison.
VIII. The Trysting Place. John W. Chadwick.

Howison.

263.

264

III.

Revolutions. From Matthew Arnold's Published Poems.

IV. Sursum Corda! M. D. Conway.

V. The Policy. Wendell Phillips.

273

281

290

291

295

VI. Jesus the Sublime Radical. H. W. Beecher. From The Inde

Single Subscriptions, Two Dollars per annum.
National Bank Bills requested.

SINGLE COPIES, 25 CTS.

SPECIAL NOTICE.

Subscriptions and Communications relating to business should be addressed to "The Radical," Boston, Communications for the Editor should be addressed Editor of "The Radical," Boston, Mass.

Mass.

Subscribers desiring the back numbers, must so state in their letters of subscription. We are out of the December number at present, but will furnish it to subscribers as soon as we can obtain a reprint.

The postage on the "The Radical" is 12 cents a year, paid at the office where it is received.

W. F. Brown & Co., Steam Job Printers, No. 15 Cornhill, Boflon

THE RADICAL.

MAY, 1866.

DISCOURSES CONCERNING THE FOUNDATIONS OF

A

RELIGIOUS BELIEF.

BY SAMUEL JOHNSON.

ง.

SPIRITUAL NEEDS AND CERTAINTIES.

FREE INQUIRY into the Foundations of Religious Belief has led us to the Organic Aspirations and Needs of the Soul as the one ultimate basis of Authority. These Natural Necessities yield the axioms and postulates of Religious Philosophy. They form the substance of Religious Faith. They, and they only, are God's Guiding Word and Hand.

It is matter of experience that our best beliefs and profoundest convictions come to us as certainties which we cannot do without. Our needs are our oracles. We cannot help trusting the divination of our worthiest desires, the insight of our deepest wants. For we live by faith in the benignity of the laws and tendencies of our nature. Herein is properly the guarantee of all religious trust, even of that which imagines itself the child of 'supernatural' evidences. The faith which underlies it and gives it all it has of genuine assurance, is in fact no other than this:- We must believe that in testifying of its own real needs, the soul affirms the reality of whatsoever answers to those needs; because it must be that we are fashioned wisely and kindly, rather than anomalously and maliciously. 'Evangelical' creeds do not supplement this natural authority, but fall within its jurisdiction as the less within the greater; and can offer no valid evidence even for what truth there is in them, which does not depend upon the devout assumption, that our nature cannot deceive us that the indispensable is the real in other words, upon the Benignity of the Moral and Spiritual Order. The folly of Supernaturalism is that it