He thus answers my indignant denunciation in the early part of his "Defence," p.

5:-- "Mr.Newman warns me with much solemnity against thinking that 'questions pertaining to God are advanced by boisterous glee.' I do not think that the 'Eclipse' is characterised by boisterous glee; and certainly I was not at all aware, that the things which _alone_[13] I have ridiculed--some of them advanced by him, and some by others--deserved to be treated with solemnity.

For example, that an authoritative external revelation,[14] which most persons have thought possible enough, is _im_possible,--that man is most likely born for a dog's life, and 'there an end'-- that there are great defects in the morality of the New Testament, and much imperfection in the character of its founder,--that the miracles of Christ might be real, because Christ was a _clairvoyant_ and mesmerist,--that God was not a Person, but a Personality;--I say, I was not aware that these things, and such as these, which alone I ridiculed, were questions 'pertaining to God,' in any other sense than the wildest hypotheses in some sense pertain to science, and the grossest heresies to religion." Now first, is his statement true?
_Are_ these the _only_ things which he ridiculed?
I quoted in my reply to him enough to show what was the class of "things pertaining to God" to which I referred.

He forces me to requote some of the passages.

"Eclipse," p.