Excerpt from The Moral System and the Atonement Somewhat over twenty-one years ago, I received, through another, an invitation from Prof. 1£. A. Park, D. D., of Andover, to write one or more Articles on the Atonement for the Bibliotheca Sacra, with special reference to Dr. Bushnell's Work entitled "Vicarious Sacrifice," which I accepted. Writing on the subject increased insight of its grounds and cuttings in the nature of the moral system, and unfolded comprehension of "what is the breadth and length and height and depth" both of the "love of Christ which passeth knowledge," and of the relations of His atonement to God and His universal society for the salvation of man. About two-thirds of Part I. and some of Part II. were written at Grinnell. Iowa, during some more than two years before April, 1869, when, in an evil hour, I resigned my Pastorship there to undertake the founding of a College at Kidder, Missouri. That enterprise so absorbed my time that this Work was almost wholly suspended, till in June, 1874 when, being wronged out of my College, I resumed and prosecuted it as persistently as possible, amidst numerous hindrances, until in the early part of 1878, when, about twelve years after it was begun, I wrote Finis. Before I left Grinnell, I decided to write a Book, instead of the Article or Articles at first designed; and if I had remained there, the Work would have been completed within three or four years from that time. From the time of its completion in 1878, till near the close of 1880, in the beginning of which year I moved to this place to be Pastor of a small Church here, the Work lay dormant. Meanwhile I decided to revise it thoroughly. The task thus assumed, which proved nearly equal to the first writing of the whole, I began in the latter part of that year, supposing it would require about a year, in which I was much mistaken. I remained Pastor over two years after resuming it; but could work at it only as Pastoral duties permitted, and mainly while others slept. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.