. 201 212 224 THE greatest religious debate in the nineteenth century, I am inclined to think, was that between Dean Mansel and Frederick Denison Maurice. Mansel contended that God in his utmost being could not be revealed; that only certain notions about Him of a provisional character could be given; that all our thoughts of Him were relative to our intellectual weakness; that the Infinite was solely for the Infinite; that for man there could be nothing but temporal images of the Eternal Goodness. After this manner Dean Mansel wrote in his book, "The Limits of Religious Thought." With great learning, much acuteness, and the sincerest purpose to do good, Mansel built a prison in which he shut in forever our entire race, a prison so tremendous that God Himself could not enter; only his shadow might creep in through its crevices to hallow the inevitable gloom. Mansel was met by Maurice in his great |