Many of the Scriptural facts were old to me:  to the importance of the history of Josiah I had perhaps even become dim-sighted by familiarity.  Why had I not long ago seen that my conclusions ought to have been different from those of prevalent orthodoxy?—­I found that I had been cajoled by the primitive assumptions, which though not clearly stated, are unceremoniously used.  Dean Graves, for instance, always takes for granted, that, until the contrary shall be demonstrated, it is to be firmly believed that the Pentateuch is from the pen of Moses.  He proceeds to set aside, one by one, as not demonstrative, the indications that it is of later origin:  and when other means fail, he says that the particular verses remarked on were added by a later hand!  I considered that if we were debating the antiquity of an Irish book, and in one page of it were found an allusion to the Parliamentary Union with England, we should at once regard the whole book, until the contrary should be proved, as the work of this century; and not endure the reasoner, who, in order to uphold a theory that it is five centuries old, pronounced that sentence “evidently to be from a later hand.”  Yet in this arbitrary way Dean Graves and all his coadjutors set aside, one by one, the texts which point at the date of the Pentateuch.  I was possessed with indignation.  Oh sham science!  Oh false-named Theology!

  O mihi tam longae maneat pars ultima vitae,
  Spiritus et, quantum sat erit tua dicere facta!

Yet I waited some eight years longer, lest I should on so grave a subject write anything premature.  Especially I felt that it was necessary to learn more of what the erudition of Germany had done on these subjects.  Michaelis on the New Testament had fallen into my hands several years before, and I had found the greatest advantage from his learning and candour.  About this time I also had begun to get more or less aid from four or five living German divines; but none produced any strong impression on me but De Wette.  The two grand lessons which I learned from him, were, the greater recency of Deuteronomy, and the very untrustworthy character of the book of Chronicles; with which discovery, the true origin of the Pentateuch becomes still clearer.[7] After this, I heard of Hengstenberg as the most learned writer on the opposite side, and furnished myself with his work in defence of the antiquity of the Pentateuch:  but it only showed me how hopeless a cause he had undertaken.

* * * * *

In this period I came to a totally new view of many parts of the Bible; and not to be tedious, it will suffice here to sum up the results.