AND LETTERS ON BIBLIOLATRY; TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF G. E. LESSING, BY H. H. BERNARD, PH. Dr. AUTHOR OF THE "CREED AND ETHICS OF THE JEWS EXHIBITED IN SELECTIONS TRÜBNER AND CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1862. 100. p. 61. EDITOR'S PREFACE. On my return to England, after a long absence ON in the Indian and China Seas, my first object was to rescue, if possible, from oblivion, for a short space at least, the name of my learned Father. Cambridge has done him indeed abundant honour as to his Hebraistic and Pædagogic accomplishments. But of his views upon far more important matters-to which Philology is but the handmaid-Cambridge knows next to nothing. My Father shrunk "from the strife of tongues." Mother Church (much as we respect that "timehonoured" Lady) has not always "that excellent thing in woman, a voice soft, gentle, and low." But the Church is not an unprotected Female. She is built on a rock, a rock, not lightly "carried about with every wind of doctrine," namely, her VESTED INTERESTS. She will therefore permit a filial tribute to a Father's memory, made, like the sacrifice of the ancient Persians, after sunset. "Nihil ultra mihi cum Luthero," said Charles V. when the Spanish soldiery wished to scatter the bones of the Great Reformer. LASS DIE TODTEN RUHEN! 4, Camden Place, Cambridge, 23 June, 1862. ISAAC BERNARD. BIBLIOLATRY,—what a word! Why disturb our minds by letters of a German, when we have "Essays and Reviews," in abundance, for those, who like such reading. I will explain by two samples. I. IN RE-DEUTERONOMY V. EXODUS, OR SUNDAY V. SABBATH. The first step from the worship of the letter to the sound and truthful Bible-Spirit worship, should be to take down, from the walls of our cathedrals, parish churches and college chapels, and erase, from our Communion Service and Catechism, the XXth chapter of Exodus. Hold! Gentlemen of the society for the suppression of vice,-stop your messenger, and hear I would humbly suggest to convocation, or rather to parliament, as a more constitutional, and me. b |