Page:Religious Thought in Holland during the Nineteenth Century James Hutton Mackay.djvu/8

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
xii
PREFACE

monthly causerie in Stemmen voor Waarheid en Vrede is always delightful reading. Dr Bronsveld has the secret of never writing anything that is not humanly interesting, and he has Dr Johnson’s merit of being a good hater. In his last month’s Stemmen—it is an indication of the trend of thought at the present day—he states that he was very much struck by the fact that two “Liberal” professors had lately been pressing the claims of Dogmatics upon theologians. One of them wished a more modest place to be assigned to the Philosophy of Religion, and more time and attention devoted to what Christianity specifically teaches.

So far as I know, there is no book in English on the subject treated of in the following lectures. Students who do not read Dutch can find an account of the theological tendencies in Holland, during the early half of the century, in the elder Chantepie de la Saussaye’s La crise religieuse en Hollande, Souvenirs et impressions, published in 1860, and in an article in the Revue des deux Mondes (1859) by Albert Réville, entitled