AN ATTEMPT TO ANSWER THE QUESTION, IN THE LIGHT
OF THE BEST SCHOLARSHIP, AND IN THE MOST
REVERENT AND CATHOLIC SPIRIT.

Jabez Thomas

By J. T. SUNDERLAND.

NEW YORK:

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

182 FIFTH Av.

.67

COPYRIGHT
1878

By G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

"The Bible is a record of truths and observances, of ways of life. and ways of worship, handed down from age to age, moulded by each in turn, growing fuller and richer by time."

DR. TEMPLE, BISHOP OF EXETER.

"The word unto the prophets spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told,
In groves of oak or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.
One accent of the Holy Ghost

The heedless world hath never lost."

EMERSON.

The two indispensable conditions of a nobler and truer theology for the time to come, are, first, a thoroughly honest use of learning-adetermination never to ignore or evade whatever criticism history or science demonstrates to be fact, however it may upset our preconceived notions or unsettle our traditional belief; and, secondly, to cultivate with the utmost veneration and tenderness that spiritual element of our being which brings us into living communion with God, and which, though wonderfully nourished and strengthened by the teachings of Scripture, flows from the same divine source, and is only another working of one and the self-same Spirit which uttered Scripture itself.

JOHN JAMES TAYLER.