AN AGNOSTIC NOVEL.
[TO THE EDITOR Or THE SPEOTATOlt."] SIN—In your powerfully written review of " Au Agnostic Novel," you have several bitter references to Calvinism. You speak of it as a " horrible travesty of Christianity." Allow me to say that what is represented as Calvinism by its opponents is often a "horrible travesty" of that system as it is rightly under- stood. Critics make a caricature of Calvinism, and then proceed to denounce their own creation. These misrepresenta- tions of Calvinism are no more like the original than the witch.created and devil-possessed Florimell in "The Faerie Queen" was like the genuine FlorimelL
In another part of your article you speak of the " ghastly theology of Calvinism." Now, I admit that it is ghastly to those who love sin and live in rebellion against Heaven. It is ghastly to the proud, carnal heart, for it exalts God and humbles man.
Again, you remark,—" With regard to Calvinism, all that need be said here is that it is not Christianity at all, but a hideous excrescence essentially foreign to the religion of Christ." Well, all I can say is that some of the best and most useful men the Church of Christ has had in her midst, have been ardent adherents of the Calvinistic theology. What shall we say of such men as Banyan, the author of the greatest alle- gorical work in the language, a book that has been of in- estimable benefit to mankind ; as Whitefield, the seraphic evangelist, who had so large a share in the work of reviving true Christianity in this land during the last century ; as Spurgeon, who is pastor of the largest Christian church in the world, and who is unwearied in his efforts for the temporal and spiritual good of his fellow-creatures P These are bat typical names. There have been thousands of others equally true and devoted, though not so eminent, who have held the Calvinistic creed, or rather have been held by it. Mr. Fronde, in speaking of the Puritan era and its theology, says We must judge of a creed by its effects upon character, as we judge of the whole- someness of food as it conduces to bodily health. And the creed which swept like a wave through England at that time, and recommended itself to the noblest and most powerful intel- lects, produced also in those who accepted it a horror of sin, an enthusiasm for justice, purity, and manliness, which can only be paralleled in the first age of Christianity." ("English Men of Letters: Bunyan," by J. A. Fronde, p. 23.) Surely it is remarkable that such blessed and beautiful effects should have been produced by what you tell us "is not Christianity at all, but a hideous excrescence essentially foreign to the reli- gion of Christ." Now, I (in common, I trust, with many readers of the Spectator) believe the Calvinistic system to be reasonable, Scriptural, and true to my own spiritual experience. And I am often amused when I notice how its opponents one day inform us that it is dead, and the next day begin savagely to attack it. It evidently causes them much uneasiness. If it really be buried in oblivion, why drag it from its dark abode ? The fact is, Calvinism is not dead yet, and will never die while God reigns and truth lives.—I am, Sir, &c., C. W. TOWNSEND.
[Fortunately, men are often better than their creed. Good men may be found under every system of religion. The Calvinism which we condemn is that which is found in the writings of Calvin, and even of the gentle Melancthou. Multitudes of nominal Calvinists neither believe nor practise the horrible doctrine which has received the sanction of those two great names. Another correspondent, for whose letter we have no room, disputes our assertion that " there is no sugges- tion of evil" in the " Story of an African Farm," and she appeals to the moral fall of Lynda by way of proof. But Lyndall's fall is not justified by the authoress ; on the contrary, that fall is represented as working out its own punishment in a very tragic manner. We have said implicitly that Miss Schreiner's agnostic doctrines have landed her in "a moral chaos." But she does not make sin attractive ; she makes it very repulsive, full of pain and sorrow.—En. Spectator.]
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