INTRODUCTION.

THE "Life and Letters of Frederick W. Robertson " has now been two years before the public, and has passed through four editions. It is hoped that the present edition will bring the book into contact with a larger circle of readers. The matter is in all essential respects identical with that of the original two volumes. No abbreviations have been made; a few alterations only in the arrangement of the letters seemed advisable, and a few additional notes have been inserted. Not one of the letters has been omitted; on the contrary, a few are added, which have come to hand since 1865.

The rapid sale of the previous editions proves the undiminished interest of the public in Mr. Robertson's life and character. The testimony of the reviews to the influence and value of his teaching, whether in sermons or letters, has been generous and comprehensive. Nor has this been confined to those who are in harmony with the tone of his mind, or agree with his opinions. A tolerance, a just weight given to his life, as distinguished from his theological views -a desire to find out the good and not the evil in the man whom they, nevertheless, oppose as a teacher, have marked the generality of the Evangelical, Anglican, and Dissenting reviews. It is pleasant to feel how much in twelve years the tone of criticism has altered for the better. There have been, with two miserable exceptions, no senseless imputations of infidelity or rationalism, no implied slander, no attempts to push forward "the truth" by depreciating or staining Mr. Robertson's character. The educated and gentlemanly partisans of that school which most strongly opposes Mr. Robertson's theology have spoken of him with kindness and Christian charity. Of those who have reversed this mode of action I need not speak. The Ethiopian cần not change his skin.

It has seemed to me, in sending out this book in the form in which it will probably continue permanent, that this is the fitting place to speak of a few of the more salient criticisms which have been made upon the biography and its subject.

It has been said by some critics that there is no adequate account given in this book of the "extraordinary" alteration in Robertson's opinions which took place at Cheltenham. But there was very little to record till the moment of change arrived. Like all radical changes, it was the product of numberless small, and in themselves unnoticeable things-passing conversations, passing events, slight shocks, the books he read, the reflex action of his sermons on his own mind, and the set which the current of his thoughts took under the general influences I have described in the text. It was a great

change, but not greater than that which occurs again and again in the history of men who are forced to win faith out of doubt. It seems sudden and unexpected, but in reality it extended over three or four years. It is because we do not see the steps which led to it, and because its crisis came in a moment-that it appears to be extraordinary. But it was no more extraordinary than is the rapid development of a plant when it is removed from a soil unsuited to it into one entirely congenial to its nature. It may be said that it is this very process of removing on which information is required, and little or none given in the biography. The fact is, all that could be given was given. There were no diaries of his feelings kept by Mr. Robertson. There were no letters written during that period which could be used. Those who knew him best seem to have known little about the workings of his mind, and all that they knew has been embodied in the biography. It was a slow and insensible growthand I do not think he was conscious himself of its full meaning till just before the crisis came.

Moreover, even had he written diaries at that time of his spiritual life--had he dissected himself in these, and watched hour by hour the progress of his soul, and recorded it-I would not have given it to the world. It is a diseased state of the public mind which demands to look into the heart of a man and to see it in all its nakedness; and nothing would have induced me to gratify this morbid curiosity. There are persons who wish to have every thing explained to them with mathematical precision-even the secret progress of the soul. I am glad not to have satisfied such persons, and if I could I would not have satisfied them.

The "Record newspaper, to which my thanks are due for the striking confirmation which its review has given to Robertson's severe judgment of its mission and spirit, has brought against me two charges of inaccuracy. It contradicts my declaration that it had reasserted, after Robertson's death, a charge of socialistic opinions against him. In reply, I quote the passage on which my opinion was founded ("Record" newspaper, December 27, 1853). "It will be remembered that Mr. Maurice, Mr. Kingsley, the late Mr. Robertson of Brighton, Mr. Ross, and others of the same school, were all mixed up, a few years ago, with schemes of Christian Socialism." Captain Robertson sent two indignant denials of this charge to the "Record." They were inserted January 5th and January 12th, 1854; and the letter of the latter date was accompanied by an introduction, in which the editor states that the wrong done to Mr. Robertson, and complained of by his father, was "purely imaginary." It was not so at least to Captain Robertson, nor, as it seems, was it altogether so to the "Record;" for in its first review of Robertson's Life there occur these words: "In the beginning of 1854, we received a long letter from Captain Robertson, defending his son from the charge of socialism, implied in a short paragraph, in which he was named as having been associated with Maurice and Kingsley." The words I have italicized are a sufficient answer to the "Record's" accusation of inaccuracy. They prove, from its own columns, that if the charge of socialism was not defined, it was at least implied. Every one knows the way in which the "Record” does its work; and in this

case, even after inserting Captain Robertson's two letters of contradiction, it managed, in a comment upon them, to imply the charge over again. "We trust," it says, "on the contrary, that he (Mr. Robertson) was saved from falling into the abyss of error round which he seemed to sport, and that, whilst numbered with Christian Socialists," etc., etc.

The second charge of inaccuracy is thus expressed: "It is another of Mr. Brooke's strange blunders to insert two letters from Mr. Maurice, which he alleges, without inquiry and contrary to fact, to have been part of a correspondence published in the columns of the "Record.""" I reply, that I am right, and the "Record" wrong. The two letters from Mr. Maurice did appear in the "Record," January 12, 1854.

Robertson has been accused of that which is called “ "negative theology." No accusation can possibly be further from the truth. If he spoke strongly against views, in his opinion erroneous, he never did so without bringing forward a positive view on the subject, lest men should be left with a soul empty, swept, and garnished. His continual effort to bring into clear light the living spirit of dogmas, forms, and even of errors, marks the positive character of his teaching. Above all, he insisted on the historical reality of the Life of Christ. He preached those facts as the foundation of all spiritual life; and he held that with the loss of the reality of the incarnation, the childhood, the temptation, the daily life, the miracles, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, we should lose Christianity. In this he differed, ab initio, from all forms of negative theology; and, at the same time, it resulted from the same antecedent that he differed from every form of theology which seeks to reduce all minds to one mode of doctrinal conception. For he rested on a life, not on a system. He did not deny the necessity of a system of theology, but he did deny the necessary permanence of any system. Christianity was founded on a Life, the spirit of which was infinite, and capable of infinite expansion. It would, therefore, be necessarily born again and again under new forms, conditioned by the character and thought of the several countries and ages it existed in. But all this continuance, under diverse forms, of Christianity, depended, in Robertson's mind, on the historical reality of Christ's person and Christ's life.

Probably, had he been asked what he thought of the "negative theology," which has now intruded upon the skirts of liberal theology, he would have quoted Goethe's words as an answer: "Every work of opposition is a negative work, and a negation is a non-entity. When I have called the bad bad, have I gained much by that? But if, by chance, I have called the good bad, I have done a great wrong. He who wishes to have a useful influence on his time ought to insult nothing. Let him not trouble himself about what is absurd, let him consecrate all his activity on this-on the bringing to light of new good things. He is bound not to overthrow, but to build up."

I have quoted these wise words, because they express as clearly as possible one of the fundamental tones of Robertson's mind, and one of the chief characteristics of his teaching. It was part of his work, then, to assimilate within himself all that was true in all parties, and