Such is the title of a book just issued from the press, and sold by D. T. and J. B. Morton, druggists and booksellers, Lexington, Ky. Altogether the book contains 379 pages, is printed on good paper, large type, and presents a very neat appearance. It claims to report with substantial accuracy the lectures of Mr. Campbell, as delivered in Bethany College during the session of 1859-60. I regret that since a copy was handed me by Bro. Moore my engagements have been such as to prevent me giving the work the careful reading its importance justly demands before calling attention to it any form. I can speak of it only from a hasty and partial reading. But even this much will enable me to commend the work to the public, especially to the friends of the great man whose lectures it aims to perpetuate in permanent form. I heard Mr. Campbell lecture from 1845 to 1849. No doubt differences existed between the lectures I heard and those reported in this book. Still these read to me much like those sounded; so much so, that I should think the work a highly creditable production of the lectures for the session to which it relates. No one can read the book without at once recognizing in it both the language of Mr. Campbell and his modes of thought. The latter, I should take it, has been somewhat compressed. This, however, is no injury to the book. The lectures I heard were certainly longer than those here preserved. But those I heard have perished forever, save as they live in the memory of a few living men. The present is the only record we shall ever have of those noble lectures. For it, therefore, I feel grateful, and hope our brotherhood will repay the care of Bro. Moore, by giving his book a wide circulation. Here are the grand utterances of a great man, who will only grow the greater the farther he recedes from the generation in which he died. Let all get the book and study closely its unequaled conceptions of the divine Volume and its contents. [165]
[Volume IV: April, 1867]