Christianity Viewed in Relation to the Present State of Society and Opinion.

This volume offers a measured reflection on how Christian belief stands alongside the great intellectual currents of the nineteenth century. Beginning with a brief survey of the faith’s revival in France, the author surveys the challenges posed by rationalism, positivism, pantheism and materialism, asking why Christianity has continued to satisfy the deepest human longings despite such assaults.

The core of the work is a trio of meditations that link Christianity to liberty, to an independent moral sense, and to the progress of science. Far from treating faith as an obstacle, the author argues that true liberty and scientific inquiry find their fullest expression when rooted in a Christian worldview, and that moral intuition is inseparable from religious conviction. The opening also sketches a larger project to trace the historic facts—scriptural authority, the church’s continuity, the split between Roman and Protestant traditions—that will later support the claim of a divine thread running through human history.