Buy "Essays and Reviews" (with annotations, background and commentary by Victor Shea and William Whitla) from the University of Virginia Press: "Essays and Reviews: The 1860 Text and Its Reading": Edited by Victor Shea and William Whitla: ISBN 0-8139-1869-3

Under Construction

• From "The Ascent of Science" (1998, Oxford University Press) by Brian L. Silver - (ISBN 0-19-511699-2 - Page 284):
  "It is often forgotten that, at the time, not everybody regarded Darwin as the spearhead of the threat to faith. A couple of months after The Origin came out, a collection of articles on religion appeared, entitled Essays and Reviews (1860). Written almost entirely by Anglican clergymen, this adopted a very liberal stance. Miracles were downplayed and reason lauded. The uproar was, if anything, more impassioned than the response to Darwin. The Church was being attacked from within. Unsuccessful attempts were made to have the authors prosecuted for heresy"

• From "Why I am not a Christian" by Bertrand Russell - March 6th 1927 (Reprinted 1996: ISBN 0-415-07918-7 - Page 14):
  • http://www.users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html
  • http://www.inquiria.com/russell/not_christian.html

  ..."Belief in eternal hell fire was an essential item of Chrisitian belief until recent times. In this country, as you know, it ceased to be an essential item because of a decision of the Privy Council, and from that decision the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York dissented; but in this country our religion is settled by Act of Parliament, and therefore the Privy council was able to override Their Graces and hell was no longer necessary to a Christian. Consequently I shall not insist that a Christian must believe in hell."

• Internet Sources of the above text:
  • Russell at the "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell/
  • The Bertrand Russell Archives - http://www.mcmaster.ca/russdocs/russell.htm