The Dudleian Lecture.

The Dudleian lecture was given last night in Appleton Chapel by the Rev. Dr, Gustave Gottheil of New York. The subject (prescribed by the will of the founder) was "The proving, explaining, and proper use and improvement of the principles of natural religion as it is commonly called and understood by divines and learned men." Dr. Gottheil chose as the part of this subject on which he wished particularly to speak the school of natural religion in ancient Israel. The fact, said the speaker, that natural religion was a factor of no mean importance in the growth of revealed religion has hardly been well understood. The Bible used to be thought of as a unity, but modern criticism has shown that it now contains several books which certainly did not originally form a part of it, but were the product of a separate school of religion with its own teachers and writers. These are the books of Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs. Any intelligent reader will notice their clear cut individuality, and the absence of that overweening nationalism so apparent in the Old Testament. In them the patriot is sunk in the man, and persons are distinguished only as righteous or sinful. The more elevated position of parents, the higher idea of marriage, and the dawning thought that virtue and vice bring their own natural consequences are other characteristics of these books, All these things point conclusively to the existence and prosperity of a well-defined school of natural religion among the Israelites.