Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity in the Nineteenth Century Delivered in the Mercer Street Church, New York, January 21 to February 21 1867 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ...with these remains of literature, and advancing generations have no interest in gathering them up and preserving them; and any man that makes a book must lay to his soul--no very " flattering unction"--the idea that probably this will be the fate of the book that he makes. Commonplace books, poetry, novels, travels, biographies, histories, works of science, works on art, are thus dropped out of view and perish, or are preserved in the alcoves of a great library, or are among the rarities which antiquarians gather. The prima facie evidence in regard to an old book is that it is worthless, because it is rare; for if it had been valuable it would have been reprinted, and would not have been rare. There are, secondly, those which have been superseded by better books on the same subject. Of these the number is already vastly large, and is constantly accumulating. Multitudes of books once useful have dropped away from the memory of mankind to be recovered no more--books that are gone with the volumes of Nathan the Prophet and Iddo the Seer (2 Chron., ix., 29)--books that have absolutely perished, while those that remain of that class go largely to swell the number of volumes on the shelves of our great libraries--books useful as illustrating the history of science and art, and the development of human affairs--books useful to the antiquarian, but books no longer useful as representing the real state of human knowledge. Science is enlarged. What was formerly regarded as science is no longer such; and the books of Galen, Hippocrates, Mela, Roger Bacon, occupy substantially the same place in science which the works of Abelard and Duns Scotus--may I not add Turretin--do in theology. The chemistry of the Middle Ages, the chemistry of...