The Testimony of the Rocks Part 26

MODERN ATHEISM.

MODERN ATHEISM, under its Forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws. By JAMES BUCHANAN, D.D., LL. D. 12mo, cloth, $1.25.

The Author of this work is the successor of Dr. Chalmers in the Chair of Divinity in the New College, Edinburgh, and the intellectual leader of the Scottish Free Church.

FROM HUGH MILLER, AUTHOR OF "OLD RED SANDSTONE," &c., &c.,--The work before us is one of at once the most readable and solid which we have ever perused.

FROM THE "NEWS OF THE CHURCHES."--It is a work of which nothing less can be said, than that, both in spirit and substance, style and argument, it fixes irreversibly the name of the author as a leading cla.s.sic in the Christian literature of Britain.

FROM HOWARD MALCOM, D.D., PRESIDENT OF LEWISBURG UNIVERSITY.--No work has come into my hands, for a long time, so helpful to me as a teacher of metaphysics and morals. I know of nothing which will answer for a subst.i.tute. The public specially needs such a book at this time, when the covert atheism of Fichte, Wolfe, Hegel, Kant, Sch.e.l.ling, D'Holbach, Comte, Crousse, Atkinson, Martineau, Leroux, Mackay, Holyoake, and others, is being spread abroad with all earnestness, supported, at least in some places, both by church influence and university honors. I cannot but hope that a work so timely, scholarly, and complete, will do much good.

It is one of the most solid and remarkable books in its department of literature; one of the most scholarly and profound inductions of modern Christian literature.--WORCESTER TRANSCRIPT.

Dr. Buchanan has earned a high and well-deserved reputation as a cla.s.sical writer and close logical reasoner. He deals heavy, deadly blows on atheism in all its various forms; and wherever the work is read it cannot fail to do good.--CHRISTIAN SECRETARY.

It is a work which places its author at once in the highest rank of modern religious authors. His a.n.a.lyses of the doctrines held by the various schools of modern atheism are admirable, and his criticism original and profound; while his arguments in defence of the Christian Faith are powerful and convincing. It is an attractive as well as a solid book; and he who peruses a few of its pages is, as it were, irresistibly drawn on to a thorough reading of the book.--BOSTON PORTFOLIO.

The style is very felicitous, and the reasoning clear and cogent.

The opposing theories are fairly stated and combated with remarkable case and skill. Even when the argument falls within the range of science, it is so happily stated that no intelligent reader can fail to understand it. Such a profound, dispa.s.sionate work is particularly called for at the present time.--BOSTON JOURNAL.

It is justly described as "a great argument," "magnificent in its strength, order, and beauty," in defence of truth, and against the variant theories of atheism. It reviews the doctrines of the different schools of modern Atheism, gives a fair statement of their theories, answers and refutes them, never evading, but meeting and crus.h.i.+ng their arguments.--PHILA. CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

Dr. Buchanan is candid and impartial, too, as a strong a man can afford to be, evades no argument, undertakes no opposing view, but meets his antagonists with the quiet and unswerving confidence of a locomotive on iron tracks, pretty sure to crush them.--CHRISTIAN REGISTER.

We hail this production of a master mind as a lucid, vigorous, discriminating, and satisfactory refutation of the various false philosophies which have appeared in modern times to allure ingenuous youth to their destruction. Dr. Buchanan has studied them thoroughly, weighed them dispa.s.sionately, and exposed their falsity and emptiness. His refutation is a clear stream of light from beginning to end.--PHILA. PRESBYTERIAN.

We recommend "Modern Atheism" as a book for the times, and as having special claims on theological students.--UNIVERSALIST QUARTERLY.

It is remarkable for the clearness with which it apprehends and the fairness with which it states, not less than for the ability with which it replies to, the schemes of unbelief in its various modern forms. It will be found easy to read--though not light reading--and very quickening to thought, while it clears away, one by one, the mists which the Devil has conjured around the great doctrines of our Faith, by the help of some of his ingenious modern coadjutors, and leaves the truth of G.o.d standing in its serene and pristine majesty, as if the breath of hatred never had been breathed forth against it.--CONGREGATIONALIST.

Dr. Buchanan has here gone into the enemy's camp, and defeated him on his own ground. The work is a masterly defence of faith against dogmatic unbelief on the one hand, and that universal skepticism on the other, which neither affirms nor denies, on the ground of an a.s.sumed deficiency of evidence as to the reality of G.o.d and religion.--N.Y. CHRISTIAN CHRONICLE.

It is a clearly and vigorously written book. It is particularly valuable for its clear statement and masterly refutation of the Pantheism of Spinoza and his School.--CHRISTIAN HERALD.