UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Glass Book Volume 
 
 UOS V2.CL u 
 
 Ja 09-20M 
 
Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
 nilS 1 2 
 
 
 ».w si 
 
 i i«Q Q 
 
 FEB 0 3 2!j03 
 
 ph 
 
 L161—H41 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 
 
 . • 
 
 . » 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 :• 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 • . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 % 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
TUUBNER AND CO.’S 
 
 LIST OF 
 
 4)clxi ^Utblintltons & iWohs in fbc 
 
 MEDITATIONS ON DEATH AND ETERNITY. Translated from the 
 
 German by Frederica ROWAN. Published by Her Majesty’s gracious permission. 8vo, pp. 
 392, cloth, price 10s. 6d. 
 
 DITTO. Smaller Edition, crown 8vo, printed on toned paper, pp. 360, price 6*. 
 
 MEDITATIONS ON LIFE AND ITS RELIGIOUS DUTIES. Translated 
 
 from the German by FREDERICA Rowan. Dedicated to H.K.H. Princess Louis of Hesse. 
 Published by Her Majesty’s gracious permission. Being the Companion Volume to “ Meditations 
 on Death and Eternity.” 8vo, pp. 376, cloth, price 10s. 6 d. 
 
 DITTO. Smaller Edition, crown 8vo, printed on toned paper, pp. 344, pr cc 6«. 
 
 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF THEODORE PARKER, Minister of 
 
 the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society at Boston, U. 8. Containing his Theological, Po¬ 
 lemical, and Critical Writings, Sermons, Speeches, Addresses, and Literary Miscellanies. 
 Edited by Frances Power Cobbe. In 12 Volumes, 8vo. 
 
 Vol. I. Containing Discourse of Matters per¬ 
 taining to lieligion; with Preface by the 
 Editor, and a Portrait of Parker from a Medal¬ 
 lion by Saulini. pp. 384, cloth, 6s. 
 
 Vol. II. Containing Ten Sermons, and Pray¬ 
 ers. pp. 368, cloth, price 6s. 
 
 Vol. III. Containing Discourses of Theology, 
 pp. 326, cloth, price 6s. 
 
 Vol. IV. Containing Discourses of Politics, 
 pp. 320, cloth, price 6s. 
 
 Vol. V. Containing Discourses of Slavery, 
 Vol. I. pp. 336, cloth, price 6s. 
 
 Vol. VI. Containing Discourses of Slavery, 
 
 Vol. VII. Containing Discourses of Social 
 Science, pp. 304, cloth, price 6s. 
 
 Vol. VIII. Containing Miscellaneous Dis¬ 
 courses. pp. 226, cloth, price 6s. 
 
 Vol. IX. Containing Critical Writings, Vol. 
 
 I. pp. 298, cloth, price 6s. 
 
 Vol. X. Containing Critical Writings, Vol. 
 
 II. pp. 316, cloth, price 6s. 
 
 Vol. XI, Containing Sermons of Theism, Athe¬ 
 ism, and the Popular Theology, pp. 312, cloth, 
 price 6s. 
 
 Vol. XII. Containing Autobiographical and 
 Miscellaneous Pieces, pp. 364, cloth, price 6s. 
 
 Vol. II. pp. 330, cloth, price 6s. 
 
 LESSONS FROM THE WORLD OF MATTER AND THE WORLD 
 
 OF MAN. By Theodore Parker. Selected from Notes of his unpublished Sermons, by 
 Ktjfus Leighton, and Edited by Frances Power Cobbe. In One Vol. Crown 8vo, pp. 
 350, cloth. Portrait, price 7s. 6 d. 
 
 THANKSGIVING. A Chapter of Religious Duty. By Frances Power 
 
 Cobbe. 18mo, pp. 40, cloth, Is. 
 
 ITALICS : BRIEF NOTES ON POLITICS, PEOPLE, AND PLACES IN 
 
 ITALY in 1864. By FRANCES POWER COBBE. 8vo, cloth, price 12s. 6d. 
 
 THE CITIES OF THE PAST. By Frances Power Cobbe. Fcap 8vo, 3s. 6d. 
 
 BROKEN LIGHTS. A Survey of the Religious Controversies of our Times. 
 
 By Frances Power Cobbe. 2nd Edition, Crown 8vo, cloth, price 5s. 
 
 RELIGIOUS DUTY. By Frances Power Cokbe. Post 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. 
 STUDIES NEW AND OLD OF ETHICAL AND SOCIAL SUBJECTS. 
 
 By Frances Power Cobbe. Crown 8vo, cloth, 10s. 6d. 
 
 GOD IN CHRIST. Three Discourses, delivered at New Haven, Cam¬ 
 bridge, and Andover ; with a preliminary Dissertation on Language. By Horace BUSHNELL. 
 Second English Edition. Crown 8vo, pp. 334, price 3s. 6 d. 
 
 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM; ITS FOUNDATIONS AND Su¬ 
 perstructure. By William Rathbone Greg. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, pp. xx. 
 and 282, price 6s. 
 
 SPINOZA’S TRACTATUS THEOLOGICO-POLITICUS ; A Critical In¬ 
 quiry into the History, Purpose, and Authenticity of the Hebrew Scriptures. From the Latiu. 
 8vo, pp. 368, cloth, price 10s. 6 d. 
 
 LETTERS ON BIBLIOLATRY. By Gotthold Ephraim Lesstng. 
 
 Translated from the German by the late H. H. Bernard, Ph. Dr. 8vo, pp. 184, cloth, Trice 5s. 
 
 A SHORT TRACTATE ON THE LONGEVITY ASCRIBED TO THE 
 
 Patriarchs in the BOOK OF GENESIS, and its relation to the Hebrew’ Chronology ; the Flood, 
 the Exodus of the Israelites, the Site of Eden, &c. &c. From the Danish of Rask. With a 
 Map of Paradise and the circumjacent Lands. Crown 8vo, pp. 134, boards, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 ERNEST RENAN’S LIFE OF JESUS. Authorized English Translation. 
 
 pp. 324, 8vo, cloth, price 10s. 6 d. Cheap Edition, Crown 8yo, cloth, Is. 6<f. 
 
 A DISCUSSION AMONG UPWARDS OF 250 THEOLOGICAL IN- 
 
 quirers, Clergymen, Dissenting Ministers, and Laymen ; on the Unity, Duality, and Trinity of 
 the Godhead : with digressions on the Creation, Fall, Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection, 
 Infallibility of the Scriptures, Inspiration, Miracles, Future Punishments, Revision of the 
 Bible, &c. 8vo, pp. 205, cloth, price 6s. 
 
 A DISCOURSE AGAINST HERO-MAKING IN RELIGION, delivered 
 
 in South Place, Finsbury, by Francis W. Newman. Printed by request, with Enlargements. 
 8vo Is. 
 
 A GENERAL VIEW OF POSITIVISM. By Auguste Comte. Trans¬ 
 
 lated by Dr J. H. Bridges. Crow r n 8vo, cloth, price 8s. 6rf. 
 
 60, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 
 
COLLECTED WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 THEODORE PARKER, 
 
 MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL 
 SOCIETY AT BOSTON, U.S. 
 
 CONTAINING HIS 
 
 THEOLOGICAL, POLEMICAL, AND CRITICAL WRITINGS, 
 SERMONS, SPEECHES, AND ADDRESSES, 
 
 AND LITERARY MISCELLANIES. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 POWER COBBE. >■■ : 
 
 >0 J 
 
 YOL. XI. 
 
 SERMONS OF THEISM, ATHEISM, AND THE POPULAR 
 
 THEOLOGY. 
 
 Strong (PbifioiT. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 N. TRUBNER & CO., GO, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
2 . 0 $ 
 
 v.w 
 
 C C 
 c c 
 C c 
 c 
 
 ( 
 
 ( 
 ( 
 € 
 c < 
 
 ( 
 
 c 
 
 ( 
 
 c 
 
 c < 
 
 c 
 
 € ( 
 
 C C 
 C « * 
 c 
 
 o 
 
 c c 
 
 u ( 
 
 * 4/ 
 
 ( 
 
 <* <> 
 
 r 
 
 < 
 
 c c 
 
 o < 
 c 
 <? 
 
 c 
 
 4 
 
 f 
 
 <j c 
 
 4 
 
 fc J 
 
 c c 
 
 «' c r 
 
 <1 
 
 c 
 
 r 
 
 c 
 
 f 
 
 c 
 
 <- 
 
 c 
 
 o 
 
 < 
 
 » 
 
 ( 
 
 4 
 
 ( 
 
 c 
 
 4 
 •< 
 I • 
 
 4 
 4 
 • 
 
 • • 
 
 c 
 
 4 4 
 
 € • 
 4- • 
 
 « r ‘« 
 
 I * i 
 4 C 
 
 * e • 
 
 r 
 
 n 
 
 4 
 
 a 
 
 t 
 
 c 
 
 4 
 
 C 
 
 c 
 
 o 
 
 c 
 
 c 
 
 c 
 
 JOHN CHILDS AND SON, 
 
 PRINTERS 
 
 
SERMONS 
 
 CF 
 
 THEISM, ATHEISM, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 BY 
 
 O 
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 o 
 
 
 1 o J 
 
 ? 3 
 
 3 3 * > 
 
 3,3 3 3 
 
 3 3 
 3 3 
 
 3 3 
 
 itonb (B Station:. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 # 
 
 N. TEUBNEE & CO., 60, PATEENOSTEE EOW. 
 
 1867 
 
1 ’ 
 
 
 * ^ 
 
 * 
 
 c* 
 
 « c 
 
 V «• 
 
 f <■ 
 
 <1 - *• 
 
 ^ ' 
 
 - 
 
 * * 
 *« *■ 
 
 f 
 
 *• 
 
 *6 ? 
 
 I ^ ^ * 
 
 C F 
 <* * e 
 
 1 <* 
 
 c* 
 
 6 
 
 e 
 
 *; * 
 «► *• 
 
 5- ^ 
 
 % * 
 
 <** 
 
 * ■ ' 
 
 e r « . 
 
 e ' 
 
 % * • 
 
 : - •, 
 
 ■ * ** * 
 
 *<■ 
 
 (.f , 
 
 * d 
 %# «■ 
 d * 
 
 ■ * '• 
 
 * f 
 I d 
 
 " ,• 
 
 d *■ 
 
 • : 
 d • 
 & * 
 
 JOHN CHILDS AND SON, 
 
 PRINTERS 
 
TO THE 
 
 EEV. WILLIAM H. WHITE 
 
 AND THE 
 
 REV. GEORGE FISKE, 
 
 WITH GRATITUDE FOR EARLY INSTRUCTION RECEIVED AT THEIR HANDS, 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 

 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 « • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The present volume forms part of a long series of 
 Sermons, but bas a certain completeness in itself, and is, 
 perhaps, intelligible without reference to what preceded 
 or followed. Almost the whole of the volume is printed 
 from the notes of Mr Leighton, an accomplished phono- 
 
 i 
 
 grapher; only the three latter sermons were written out 
 by myself. I have often been asked to repeat this portion 
 of the series, but prefer to lay it before a larger public 
 than a merely spoken word can reach. 
 
 Boston, July 16th, 1853. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ‘ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction . . . . » . 
 
 I. Of Speculative Atheism, regarded as a Theory of the Uni¬ 
 verse • i •• •• » • . . » * 
 
 II. Of Practical Atheism, regarded as a Principle of Ethics . . 
 
 III. Of the Popular Theology of Christendom, regarded as a 
 Theory of the Universe 
 
 IY. Of the Popular Theology of Christendom, regarded as a 
 Principle of Ethics . , 
 
 Y. Of Speculative Theism, regarded as a Theory of the Uni¬ 
 verse •• •• •• •• •• ^• 
 
 VI. Of Practical Theism, regarded as a Principle of Ethics . . 
 
 VII. Of the Function and Influence of the Idea of Immortal Life 
 
 VIII. Of the Universal Providence of God . . . . . . 
 
 IX. Of the Economy of Pain and Misery under the Universal 
 Providence of God 
 
 X. Of the Economy of Moral Error under the Universal Pro¬ 
 vidence of God 
 
 PAGE 
 
 xi 
 
 I 
 
 23 
 
 52 
 
 78 
 
 104 
 
 127 
 
 152 
 
 173 
 
 194 
 
 223 
 

 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 • \ 
 
 % 
 
 • * 
 
 « I 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 SOME THOUGHTS ON THE CONDITION OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 At Some, eighteen centuries ago this very year, Nero was 
 married to a maiden called Oetavia. He was the son of 
 Ahenobarbus and Agrippina; the son of a father so aban¬ 
 doned and a mother so profligate that when congratulated by 
 his friends on the birth of his first child, and that child a son, 
 the father said, what is born of such a father as I, and such 
 a mother as my wife, can only be for the ruin of the State. 
 Oetavia was yet worse born. She was the daughter of Clau¬ 
 dius and Messalina. Claudius was the Emperor of Home, 
 stupid by nature, licentious and drunken by long habit, and 
 infamous for cruelty in that age never surpassed for its op¬ 
 pressiveness, before or since. Messalina, his third wife, was 
 a monster of wickedness, who had every vice that can dis¬ 
 grace the human kind, except avarice and hypocrisy: her 
 boundless prodigality saved her from avarice, and her match¬ 
 less impudence kept her clean from hypocrisy. Too incon¬ 
 tinent even of money to hoard it, she was so careless of the 
 opinions of others that she made no secret of any vice. Her 
 name is still the catchword for the most loathsome acts that 
 . can be conceived of. She was put to death for attempting 
 to destroy her husband’s life ; he was drunk when he signed 
 the warrant, and when he heard that his wife had been assas¬ 
 sinated at his command he went to drinking again. 
 
 Agrippina, the mother of Nero, and the bitterest enemy of 
 Messalina, took her place in a short time, and became the 
 fourth wife of her uncle Claudius, who succeeded to the last 
 and deceased husband of Agrippina only as he succeeded to 
 the first Homan king—a whole commonwealth of predecessors 
 intervening. Oetavia, aged eleven, was already espoused to 
 another, who took his life when his bride’s father married the 
 
xn 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 mother of Nero, well knowing the fate that else awaited him. 
 Claudius, repudiating his own son, adopted Nero as his child 
 and imperial heir. In less than two years Agrippina 
 poisoned her husband, and by a coup d ’ etat put Nero on 
 the throne, who, ere long, procured the murder of his own 
 mother, Seneca the philosopher helping him in the plot, but 
 also in due time to fall by the hand of the tyrant. 
 
 Eighteen centuries ago this very year, Nero, expecting to 
 be emperor, married Octavia,—he sixteen years old, yet de¬ 
 bauched already by premature licentiousness,—she but eleven, 
 espoused to another who had already fallen by his own hand, 
 bringing calculated odium on the imperial family; a yet sad¬ 
 der fate awaited the miserable maid thus bartered away in 
 infancy. 
 
 This marriage of the Emperor’s adopted son with his only 
 daughter was doubtless thought a great event. Everybody 
 knew of it: among the millions that swarmed in Home, pro¬ 
 bably there was not a female slave but knew the deed. His- 
 • torians in their gravity paused to record it; poets, doubtless, 
 with the customary flattery of that inconstant tribe, wrote 
 odes on the occasion of this shameless marriage of a dissolute 
 boy and an unfortunate girl. 
 
 The same year, fifty-three after the birth of Christ, accord¬ 
 ing to the most ancient chronological canon which has come 
 down to us, there came to Eome an obscure man, Saul by 
 name, which he had altered to Paul; a sail-maker, as it seems, 
 from the little city of Tarsus in Cilicia. Nobody took much 
 notice of it. Nay, the time of his coming is quite uncertain 
 and hard to ascertain ; and it appears that the writer of this 
 most ancient chronicle, though he lived sixteen or seventeen 
 hundred years nearer the fact than we do, was mistaken, and 
 that in the year fifty-three Paul went to Corinth for the first . 
 time and dwelt there ; and eight years after, in the spring of 
 the year, was brought a prisoner to Eome. These curiosities 
 of chronology show how unimportant Paul’s coming was 
 thought at that time. The marriage of a dissolute boy, with 
 an unfortunate girl, was set down as a great thing, while the 
 coming of Paul was too slight a circumstance to deserve 
 notice. 
 
 He came from a hated nation,—the Jews were thought 
 the enemies of mankind,—he was a poor plebeian, a mechanic, 
 and lived in an age when military power and riches had such 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 an influence as never before, or since. He was apparently 
 an unlettered man, or bad only the rough, narrow culture 
 which a Hebrew scholar got at Tarsus and Jerusalem. He 
 had little eloquence ; “ his bodily presence w^as weak, and his 
 speech contemptible.” He came to the most populous city 
 in the world,* the richest and the wickedest. Hero and 
 Agrippina were types of wealthy and patrician Home ; for 
 that reason it is that I began by telling their story, and, 
 though aware of the true chronology, have connected this 
 atrocious wedlock with the coming of the apostle. 
 
 The city was full of soldiers; men from Parthia and 
 Britain, who had fought terrible battles, bared their scars in 
 the Forum and the Palace of the Csesars. Learned men 
 were there. Political Greece had died ; but Grecian genius 
 long outlived the shock which overturned the state. Of 
 science Greece w T as full, and her learned men and men w r ell- 
 born with genius fled to Borne. The noble minds from that 
 classic land went there, full of thought, full of eloquence and 
 song, running over with beauty. Bough, mountainous 
 streams of young talent from Spain and Africa Towed thither, 
 finding their home in that great oceanic city. The Syrian 
 Orontes had emptied itself into the Tiber. There were tern- 
 pies of wondrous splendour and richness, priests celebrated for 
 their culture and famed for their long descent. All these 
 were hostile to the new form of religion taught by Paul. 
 
 But the popular theology was only mythology. It was 
 separate from science, alienated from the life of the people. 
 The temple did not represent philosophy, nor morality, nor 
 piety. The priests of the popular religion had no belief in 
 the truth of its doctrines, no faith in the efficacy of its forms. 
 Beligion was tradition with the priest; it was police with the 
 magistrate. The Boman augurs did not dare look each other 
 in the face on solemn days, lest they should laugh outright 
 and betray to the people what was the open secret of the 
 priest. 
 
 Everywhere, as a man turned his eye in Borne, there was 
 riches, everywhere power, everywhere vice. Did I say every¬ 
 where P Ho ;—the shadow of riches is poverty, and there 
 was such poverty as only St Giles’s Parish in London can 
 now equal. The shadow of power is slavery ; and there was 
 such slavery in Borne as American Hew Orleans and Charles¬ 
 ton cannot boast. Did I say there was vice everywhere ? 
 
XiV 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 No : in the shadow of vice there always burns the still, calm 
 flame of piety, justice, philanthropy; that is the light which 
 goeth not out by day, which is never wholly quenched. But 
 slavery and poverty and sin were at home in that city,—such 
 slavery, such poverty, and such sin as savage lands know 
 nothing of. If we put together the crime, the gluttony, the 
 licentiousness of New Orleans, New York, Paris, London, 
 Vienna, and add the military power of St Petersburg, we 
 may have an approximate idea of the condition of ancient 
 Borne in the year fifty-three after Christ. Let none deny 
 the manly virtue, the womanly nobleness, which also found a 
 home therein; still it was a city going to destruction, and 
 the causes of its ruin were swiftly at work. 
 
 Christianity came to Borne with Paul of Tarsus. The tid¬ 
 ings thereof went before him. Nobody knows who brought 
 them first. It was a new “ superstition,” not much known 
 as yet. It was the religion of a “ blasphemer ” who had got 
 crucified between “ two others, malefactors.” Christianity 
 was then “ the latest form of infidelity.” Paul himself came 
 there a prisoner, but so obscure that nobody knows what 
 year he came, how long he remained, or what his fate was. 
 
 “ He lived two years in his own hired house,”—that is the 
 last historic word which comes down to us of the great 
 apostle. Catholic traditions tell us of missions to various 
 places, and then round it off with martyrdom. The martyr¬ 
 dom only is probable, the missions obviously fictitious. Pro¬ 
 bably he was in jail to the end of his days, wdren the heads- . 
 men ferried that great soul into heaven ;—and very seldom 
 was it, so it seems, that he took over so weighty a freight as 
 Paul made for that bark. 
 
 The sail-maker brought the new religion. It was an idea, 
 and action also ; belief in men and life out of them. It had 
 nothing to recommend it, only itself and himself. Paul 
 offered no worldly riches, no honour, no respectability. A 
 man who “joined the church” then, did not have his name 
 trumpeted in the newspapers; did not get introduced to re¬ 
 putable society ; did not find his honour and respectability 
 everywhere enhanced by that fact. 
 
 Christianity had these things to offer,—scorn, loathing, 
 contempt, hatred from father and mother, from the husband 
 of the wife’s bosom,—for probably it was the wife who went 
 first, it is commonly so,—and at last it offered a cruel death. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XT 
 
 But it told of a to-morrow after to-day; of a law higher than 
 the statutes of Nero ; of one God, the Bather of all men ; of 
 a kingdom of Heaven, where all is sunlight and peace and 
 beauty and triumph. Paul himself had got turned out of the 
 whole Eastern world, and the founder of this scheme of re¬ 
 ligion had just been hanged as a blasphemer. Christianity 
 was treason to the Hebrew State; to the Roman Church the 
 latest form of infidelity. 
 
 Doubtless there were great errors connected with the 
 , Christian doctrine. One need only read the epistles of Paul 
 to know that. But there were great truths. The oneness of 
 God, the brotherhood of men, the soul’s immortality, the need 
 of a virtuous, blameless, brave life on earth,—these were the 
 great truths of Christianity ; and they were set off by a life 
 as great as the truths, a life of brave work and manly self- 
 denial and self-sacrifice. 
 
 The early, nay, the earliest Christians had many an error. 
 How does wheat grow ? With manifold straw ; and there are 
 whole cart-loads of straw for a single sack of wheat corn. 
 The straw is needful; not a grain of corn could grow without 
 it; by and by, it litters the horses, and presently rots and 
 fertilizes the ground whence it came. But the grain lives 
 on ; and is seed-corn for future generations, or bread-corn to 
 feed the living. 
 
 Christianity as an idea was far in advance of Judaism and 
 Hebraism. As a life it transcended everything which the 
 highest man had dreamed of in days before. Men tried to 
 put it down, crucified Jesus, stoned his disciples, put them in 
 jail, scourged them, slew them with all manner of torture. 
 But the more they blew the fire, the more swiftly it burned. 
 Water the ground with valiant blood, the young blade of 
 heroism springs up and blossoms red: the maiden blooms 
 white out of the martyr blood which her mother had shed on 
 the ground ; and there is a great crop of hairy men full of 
 valour. Christians smiled when they looked the rack in the 
 face ; laughed at martyrdom, and said to the tormentors, “ Do 
 you want necks for your block p Here are ours. Betwixt us 
 and Heaven there is only a red sea, and any axe makes a 
 bridge wide enough for a soul to go over. Exodus out of 
 Egypt is entrance to the promised land, Eire is a good 
 chariot for a Christian Elias.” 
 
 In a few hundred years that sail-maker had swept Rome of 
 vol. xi. — Theism, , $c. b 
 
xvi 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Heathenism: not a temple remained Pagan. Even the statues 
 got converted to Christianity, and Minerva became the Virgin 
 Mary ; Venus took the vow and was a Magdalene ; Olympian 
 Jove was christened Simon Peter : everybody sees at Pome a 
 bronze statue of Jupiter, older than Paul’s time, which is now 
 put in the great cathedral and baptized Simon Peter; and 
 thousands of Catholics kiss the foot of what was once “ Hea¬ 
 then Jove.” The gods of Pome gave way to the carpenter of 
 Nazareth ; he was called God. The Christian ideas and great 
 Christian life of Paul of Tarsus put all Olympus to rout. 
 
 Then in thirteen or fourteen hundred years more there 
 slowly got budded up the most remarkable scheme of theology 
 that the world ever saw. Hebraism went slowly down; 
 Heathenism went slowly down. Barbarism, a great storm 
 from the North, beat on the roof of the Christian house, and 
 it fell not ;—No, barbarism ran off from the eaves of the 
 Christian Church to water the garden of Italy, Spain, France, 
 Germany, England; they were blessed by that river of God 
 which fell from the eaves. 
 
 But Hebraism, Heathenism, Barbarism—as forms of reli¬ 
 gion—did not die all at once, they are not yet wholly dead. 
 No one of them was altogether a mistake. Each of them had 
 some truth, some beauty, which mankind needed, and there 
 they must stand face to face with Christianity till it has ab¬ 
 sorbed all of their excellence into itself: then they will perish. 
 Individual freedom was the contribution which German Bar¬ 
 barism brought, and we have got much of that enshrined in 
 our trial by jury, representative democracy, and a hundred 
 other forms. Deep faith in God and fidelity to one’s own 
 conscience,—these are the great things which Moses and 
 Samuel and David and Esaias and Ezra taught ; and accord¬ 
 ingly the Old Testament lies on every pulpit lid in all Chris¬ 
 tendom to this dav, and will not sink because it has those 
 excellences. Heathenism had science, beauty, law, power of 
 organization; they also must be added to the Christian civil¬ 
 ization before Heathenism goes to its rest. AVe have not got 
 all the good from Heathenism yet; and accordingly the 
 superior culture of Christendom is based on Greek and Bo- 
 man classics: Fathers send their boys to’superior schools 
 that they may learn from the Heathen ; that they may ac¬ 
 quire strength of reasoning from Aristotle and Plato, the 
 bravery of eloquence from Cicero and Demosthenes, and the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XY11 
 
 beauty of literary art from Homer and Horace and Sophocles 
 and iEschylus, and that mighty army of genius whose trumpets 
 stir the world. From many a clime, for many an age, do 
 “ pilgrims pensive, but unwearied, throng ” to Athens and 
 Rome, to study the remains of ancient art; remnants of tem¬ 
 ples are brought over the sea to every Christian land, to bless 
 the Christian heart with Pagan beauty. Patient mankind 
 never loses a useful truth. 
 
 It is curious to look and see how little notice was taken of 
 Christianity coming to Rome. The men of pleasure knew 
 nothing of the strife betwixt the old and new in Paul’s time; 
 the political economists of that day, as it seems, foresaw no 
 productive power in Christianity ; the politicians took little 
 notice thereof, till Hero sought to cut off the neck of Chris¬ 
 tendom at one blow. A historian—Roman all through, in 
 his hard powerful nature, but furnished with masterly Greek 
 culture,—spoke of Christianity as “ that detestable supersti¬ 
 tion,” which, with other mischiefs, had flowed down into Rome, 
 the common sink of all abominations. Sour Juvenal gave the 
 new religion a wipe with his swift lash, dipping it first in 
 bitter ink. Pliny the younger wrote a line to the emperor, 
 asking how he should treat these pestilent fellows, the Chris¬ 
 tians, who are not afraid to die. This is all the notice literary 
 Rome took of Christianity for a century or so. Men knew 
 not the force which was going to baptize Pagan Rome with 
 the Christian name. Yet in their time, while the voluptuous 
 were seeking for a new pleasure, while the Stoics and Epicu¬ 
 reans were doubting which was the chief good, while politi¬ 
 cians were busy with troops and battles,—there came silently 
 into Rome a power which shook Heathenism down to the 
 dust; and the great battle betwixt new and old took place, 
 and they knew it not. So an old story tells that when Rome 
 and Africa crossed swords in great battle on Italian soil, they 
 fought with such violence and ardour, that while an earthquake 
 came and shook down a neighbouring city they kept fighting 
 on, and knew only their own convulsion. So in the fray of 
 pain and pleasure, the great earthquake which threw down 
 the Hebrew and Pagan Theology “ reeled unheededly away.” 
 
 How old Rome is buried twenty feet thick with modern 
 Rome ; the civilization of Europe is Christian,—all but a 
 corner of it where the Crescent eclipses the Cross. Hay, in 
 London and Boston and Hew York is a society of “ unsocial 
 
XV 111 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Britons divided from all the world,” which spreads abroad the 
 words of Paul and of Jesus, and in twenty years has translated 
 the gospel of Christ and the epistles of Paul into one hundred 
 and forty-seven different tongues, and spread them amongst 
 men from the Thames to the “ fabulous Ilydaspes ; ” yea, from 
 one end of the world to the other. In countries alike un¬ 
 known to the science of Strabo and Plato’s dream, the words 
 of these two Hebrews have found a home : and now two hun¬ 
 dred and sixty millions of men worship the Crucified as God. 
 Xot a great city all Europe through, but has a great church 
 dedicated to that sail-maker of Tarsus, whose journey to Pome 
 was so significant and so unchronicled. 
 
 What power there must have been in the ideas and the 
 life of those men, to effect such a conquest in such a time! 
 It is no wonder that many ordinary men, who know Chris¬ 
 tianity by rote and heroism by hearsay, and who think that to 
 join a fashionable church is “to renounce the world,”—it is 
 no wonder that they think Christianity spread miraculously, 
 that God wrote a truth and sowed Christianity broadcast, and, 
 if men would not take it without, lie harrowed it into them 
 by miracle. Judging from their consciousness, what is there 
 that they know which could explain the spread of Christianity, 
 and the heroism of a man laying his head, and his wife's and 
 children’s heads, on the block for a conscientious conviction ? 
 Doubtless they are just and true to what is actual in them¬ 
 selves in believing that Christianity spread by miracle ; and if 
 a man has not soul enough to trust that soul, it is easy to see 
 how he may think that every great truth came by miracle. 
 An Esquimaux would suppose that a railroad car went mi¬ 
 raculously. 
 
 Eighteen hundred years, with threescore generations of 
 men, have passed by since Paul first went to Pome. What 
 a change since then! It is worth while to look at the eccle¬ 
 siastical condition of Christendom at this day. The Christian 
 Church has very great truths, which will last for ever. But 
 as a whole it seems to me that at this day the Christian 
 Church is in a state of decay. I do not mean to say that 
 Peligion decays,—piety and morality : the sun will fade out 
 of the heavens before they perish out of man’s heart. But 
 the power of that institution which is called the Christian 
 Church, the power of its priesthood,—that is assuredly in a 
 state of decay. It has separated itself from new Science, the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XIX 
 
 fresh thought of mankind; from new Morality, the fresh 
 practical life of mankind; from new Justice ; from new Phi¬ 
 lanthropy ; from new Piety. It looks back for its inspira¬ 
 tion. Its God is a dead God. Its Christ is a crucified 
 Christ; all its saints are dead men : its theology is a dead 
 science, its vaunted miracles only of old time, not new. 
 Paul asked for these three things,—liberty, equality, brother¬ 
 hood. Does the Christian Church ask for any one of the 
 three ? It does not trust Human Nature in its normal ac¬ 
 tion ; does not look to the Human Mind for truth, nor the 
 Human Conscience for justice, nor the Human Heart and 
 Soul for love and faith. It does not trust the living God, 
 now revealing Himself in the fresh flowers of to-day and the 
 fresh consciousness of man. It looks back to some alleged 
 action in ’the history of mankind, counting the History of 
 man better than man’s Nature. It looks back to some alleged 
 facts in the history of God, counting those fictitious miracles 
 as greater than the nature of God; He has done His best, 
 spoken for the last time ! 
 
 In all this the whole Christian Church agrees, and is 
 unitary, and there is no discord betwixt Catholic and Pro¬ 
 testant. But they differ in respect to the things to which 
 they pay supreme and sovereign homage. The Catholic wor¬ 
 ships the Church: that is infallible, with its biblical and 
 extra-biblical tradition, and its inspiration. The Homan 
 Church is the religion of the Catholic. He must necessarily 
 be intolerant. Two writers prominent in the Catholic Church 
 of America within the last few months have declared that the 
 Catholic Church is just as intolerant as she always was, and 
 as soon as she gets power there shall be no more freedom of 
 thought and speech in the new continent; she only waits for 
 a hand to clutch the sword and put Protestantism to death. 
 This comes unavoidably from her position. She must be sure 
 that everybody else is wrong. 
 
 The Protestants worship the Bible, with its Old Testament 
 and New; that is infallible. The Bible is the religion of the 
 Protestants, as the Church is the religion of the Catholics, 
 and the Koran of the Mahometans. This is the ultimate 
 source of religious doctrine, the ultimate standard of religious 
 practice. Here the Protestant sects are unitary ; even the 
 Universalists and Unitarians agree in this same thing, or pro¬ 
 fess to do so. 
 
XX 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Then the Protestants differ about the doctrines of that 
 infallible word; and so while one hand of Protestantism is 
 clenched on the Bible, the other is divided into a great many 
 fingers, each pointing to its own creed as the infallible inter¬ 
 pretation of the infallible word : the one pencil of white 
 Protestant sunshine, drawn from the Bible, is broken by the 
 historic prism into manifold rays of antithetic colour. 
 
 It is a great mistake for the Christians, as a whole, to 
 maintain that they have nothing to learn from the Hebrews, 
 the Heathen, the Buddhists, and the Mahometans ;—though 
 the Christians are in many respects superior to these other 
 sects of the world, yet they have much to teach us. It is a 
 mistake for the Protestant to say he has nothing to learn 
 from the Catholic : the Catholic—though far behind the 
 Protestant—has many things to impart to us. And it is a 
 mistake for the Unitarian, or Universalist, to declare that he 
 has nothing to learn from the Trinitarian and Partialist. As 
 yet no one of these great world sects, Christian, Heathen, 
 Hebrew, Buddhist, Mahometan, has the whole Human truth ; 
 and in Christianity no one sect has the whole of Christian 
 truth. 
 
 But the Christian Churches have broken with Science, and 
 are afraid of new thought. This is somewhat less true of the 
 Protestant than of the Catholic priesthood. They have 
 broken also with fresh Morality, and are afraid of that. And 
 so the Christian Church to-day is very much in the same con¬ 
 dition that Heathenism and Judaism were at the time when 
 Paul first went to Borne. 
 
 Kearly twelve centuries ago the subtle Grecian intellect 
 separated from the practical sense of the western world, and 
 for more than eight hundred years there were two Christian 
 Churches, the Greek and the Latin. Three hundred years ago 
 a deadly blow was struck at the unity of the Latin Church. 
 Since then there have been three Christian Churches, the 
 Greek, the Catholic, and the Protestant; the two former only 
 conservative, the latter also progressive, but not progressive 
 in orthodoxy, progressive only by heresy,—for the Church 
 carefully cuts ofi* the top of its own tree as soon as it is 
 found to have new and independent life therein; it falls to 
 the ground, and grows up a new tree. The Catholic Church 
 cut oft" the Protestants ; in the Protestant Church the Trini¬ 
 tarians cut oft" the Unitarians ; and now the Unitarians seek 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXI 
 
 to cut off those who have newer life than theirs, newer 
 blossoms. 
 
 In the Christian Church there are many churches. But 
 there is not one that bears the same relation to the civiliza¬ 
 tion of the world which Paul bore eighteen hundred years 
 ago. He looked forward; they look back. He asked liberty 
 of thought and speech; they are afraid of both. There is 
 not a Christian government which has not some statute for¬ 
 bidding freedom of thought and speech. Even on the statute- 
 books of Massachusetts, there slumbers a law prohibiting a 
 man to speak lightly of any of the doctrines in this blessed 
 Bible; and it is not twenty years since a magistrate of this 
 State asked the grand-jury of a county to find a true bill 
 against a learned Doctor of Divinity, who had written an 
 article proving there was no prophecy in the Old Testament 
 which pointed a plain finger to the person of Jesus of 
 Nazareth. 
 
 All over Europe religion is supported by the State, by the 
 arm of the law. The clergy wish it to be so, and they say 
 Christianity would fail if it were not. Hence come the 
 costly national Churches of Europe, wherein the priest sits on 
 the cartridge-box, supported by bayonets, a drum for his 
 sounding-board, and preaches in the name of the Prince of 
 Peace, having cannon-balls to enforce his argument. What 
 a contrast between the national Churches of Russia, Austria, 
 Prussia, England, and the first Church which Paul gathered 
 in his prison-house, where he preached with his left hand 
 chained to a soldier’s right hand, “ his bodily presence weak, 
 and his speech contemptible.” 
 
 But there has been a great and rapid development of hu¬ 
 manity since Paul first came to Italy. What a change in 
 agriculture, mechanic art, commerce, war, in education, po¬ 
 litics ! What new science, new art, new literature, has 
 sprung up ! How the world’s geography has changed, from 
 Eratosthenes to Ritter ! But the interior geography of man 
 has altered yet more. The ancient poles are now in the 
 modern equator. Compare the governments then and now ; 
 the wars of that period ; the condition of the people. The 
 Peasant was everywhere a slave at that time. Now slavery 
 has fled to America—she alone, of all Christendom, fosters in 
 her bosom that odious snake which has stung and poisoned 
 so many a departed State. Compare the condition of Woman. 
 
XXII 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The change has been immense. The compass gave mankind 
 America; gunpowder made a republic possible;—it could not 
 have been without that;—the printing-press made education 
 accessible to everybody. Steam makes it easy for a nation to 
 secure the material riches which are indispensable to civiliza¬ 
 tion, and yet leave time for culture in the great mass of men. 
 How have the humanities gone forward,—freedom, education, 
 temperance, chastity; concern for the poor, the weak, the 
 abandoned, the blind, the deaf, the dumb ! Once the Chris¬ 
 tian Church fostered the actual humanities of the times. 
 There was not a temperance society in the world; the Church 
 was the temperance society. There was not a peace society ; 
 the Church was the peace society : not an education society; 
 the Church opened her motherly arms to many a poor man’s 
 son who had talent, and gave him culture; and he walked 
 through the cathedral door into the college, thence to the 
 great mountain of the world, and climbed as high as he could 
 get. How as the Church is in the process of decay, we need 
 special missionary societies, societies for preventing drunken¬ 
 ness and every vice. The function of the ancient Church has 
 passed to other hands. She teaches only from memory of 
 times long past. The national Churches apologize for the 
 national sins, and defend them. In Europe the established 
 clergy are seldom friendly to any movement for the benefit of 
 mankind. In America it is they who are eminent supporters 
 of every public enormity which the nation loves, willing to 
 send their mother into slavery, pressing the Bible into the 
 ranks of American sin. 
 
 The Christian Church early departed from the piety and 
 morality of Jesus of Hazareth. Taken as a whole it has made 
 some great errors, and is now suffering the penalty thereof. 
 It has taught that God was finite, and not infinite ; that 
 man’s nature was a mistake, a nature which could not be 
 trusted; it has put fictitious miracles before real law, and 
 forced the heretic philosopher to confess that the Church 
 was right, though the earth did still move; it has taught that 
 religion was chiefly to save mankind from the wrath of God 
 in the next world, not to bless us here on earth. 
 
 The Christian Churches neglect the evils of their own time. 
 To judge from the publications that have been sent forth by 
 the American Churches in the last tw'entv years,—the tracts 
 of the Orthodox, Baptists, Methodists, Unitarians,—what 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XX111 
 
 would a stranger suppose was tlie great sin of America at this 
 day ? He might read them all through and scarcely conjec¬ 
 ture .that there was a drunkard in the land ; he would never 
 think there was any political corruption in the country ; he 
 would suppose we had most of all to fear from “ doubt of 
 theological doctrines ; ” he would not ever dream that there 
 were as many slaves in America to-day as there are church- 
 members. Why is this ? Because the Churches have con¬ 
 cluded that it is the function of religion to save the soul from 
 the wrath of God ; not to put down great sins here on earth, 
 and make mankind better and men better off. These mistakes 
 are the reason why the Christian Church is in this process of 
 
 It does not appear that Jesus of Nazareth separated his 
 thought from the new Science of the age, and said, “ Do not 
 think; ” or that he separated his religion from the new 
 Morality of the age, and said, “ Never reform a vice, oh ! ye 
 children of the Kingdom ! ” He laid his axe at the root of 
 the sinful tree and sought to hew it down. With him the 
 problem was to separate religious ideas and life from organ¬ 
 izations that would not admit of a new growth; to put his 
 new wine into new bottles. With Luther there was the same 
 problem. He endeavoured to make new ecclesiastical raiment 
 for mankind, tired of attempts to mend and wear the old and 
 ill-fitting clothes of the Church which became only worse for 
 the botching. In the present time there is the same problem : 
 to gather from the past, from the Bible, from the Catholic 
 and Protestant Churches, from Jew and Gentile, Buddhist, 
 Brahman, and Mahometan, every old truth which they have 
 got embalmed in their precious treasuries ; and then to reach 
 out and upwards towards God, and get every new truth that 
 we can, and join all these together into a whole of theological 
 truth—then to deepen the consciousness of God in our own 
 soul, and make the Absolute Beligion the daily life of men. 
 
 Let the word Philosophy stand for the whole sum of human 
 knowledge, and be divided into five great departments, or 
 sciences, namely: Mathematics, treating of quantity and the 
 relations thereof; Physics, including a knowledge of the 
 statical, dynamical, and vital forces of matter,—mechanics, 
 chemistry, and physiology in its various departments, as it 
 relates to the structure and action of the material world as a 
 whole, or to any of its several parts, mineral, vegetable, or 
 
XXIV 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 animal; History, embracing the actions of man in all his in¬ 
 ternal complexity of nature and in all his external complica¬ 
 tions of movement, individual or collective ; Psychology, 
 which includes all that belongs to human consciousness, in¬ 
 stinctive, reflective, and volitive—intellectual, moral, affec- 
 tional, and religious ; and Theology, which treats of God and 
 His relations to matter and man. 
 
 The progressive welfare of man demands a free develop¬ 
 ment in all these five departments of activity. All these 
 sciences are equally the productions of the human spirit and 
 equally amenable to the mind of man, which collects, classi¬ 
 fies, and studies both facts of observation and of conscious¬ 
 ness. 
 
 To make a special application of this doctrine—the reli¬ 
 gious welfare of man requires, as its condition, freedom to 
 study the facts of observation and consciousness, and to form 
 such a scheme of Mathematics and Physics, of History, Psy¬ 
 chology, and Theology, as will correspond to his general 
 spiritual development and his special religious development. 
 If a man, a nation, or mankind, lacks this freedom and accepts 
 such a scheme of these sciences as does not fit his spiritual 
 or religious condition, then there is a contradiction in his 
 consciousness; and there is no peace until he has cast out 
 the discordant element and so established unity. 
 
 At the present day in Protestant Christendom, philosophers 
 study the first four disciplines with entire freedom. Xo 
 mathematician feels bound to stop where Archimedes, Xewton, 
 or La Place finished his career; no naturalist checks his 
 steeds at the goal set up by Yon Buch, or Hippocrates ; the 
 historians and metaphysicians voyage beyond the Hercules’ 
 Pillars of Thucydides and Aristotle, not fearing to sail the 
 seas with God. It is universally admitted by the students 
 of truth, that all these sciences are progressive, amenable to 
 perpetual revision ; and that in all of them the human mind 
 is the final umpire. The inquirer looks for the facts, their 
 law, their meaning, and their use. There is no artificial norm 
 established beforehand to which the mathematician, naturalist, 
 historian, or metaphysician must make all things agree. 
 There is no Procrustes’ bed in any of these four sciences 
 whereon to torture ideas. 
 
 In Catholic countries the case is often different; the 
 Roman Church hinders the progress of each of these sciences 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXV 
 
 —even the Mathematics so far as that treats of the relation 
 of quantities, as the Earth and Sun for example—by pro¬ 
 hibiting freedom of thought and speech; this Church has 
 established its own artificial norm, the standard,measure of 
 all science. 
 
 In Protestant countries, it is commonly thought, or at 
 least alleged, that Theology is an exception to the general 
 rule which controls the other sciences; that it is not pro¬ 
 gressive, not amenable to perpetual revision; therein the 
 human mind is not the final umpire ; that it is a divine 
 science, the facts not derived from human observation and 
 consciousness, but miraculously communicated to man. • Ac¬ 
 cordingly, the men who control the Popular Theology and 
 occupy most of the pulpits of these countries, accept an old 
 system of opinions which does not correspond to the general 
 consciousness of enlightened men at this day. This obsolete 
 Theology is set up either as religion itself, or else as the in¬ 
 dispensable condition of religion. Thus the religious, the 
 moral, and indeed the general spiritual development of man¬ 
 kind, is much retarded. Nay, the theologians often claim 
 eminent domain over the other sciences, insisting that the 
 naturalist, the historian, and the metaphysician shall conform 
 to their artificial standard, and interpret facts of observation 
 and of consciousness so as to correspond with their whimsical 
 dreams ; so that now the greatest obstacle which lies in the 
 way of human progress is the Popular Theology. 
 
 In the time of Jesus and Paul the spiritual progress of 
 mankind was hindered by the theological conclusions and 
 ritual forms of previous generations. "What was the result 
 of hard thinking and manifold effort on the father’s part was 
 accepted by the sons as a foregone conclusion, as a Einality 
 in religion. So the sons inherited their father’s thought, but 
 not his thinking, and made his religious form the substitute 
 for religious life on their own part. If we sum up the the¬ 
 ologies and rituals of ante-Christian antiquity in two words, 
 we may say that at the time of Jesus and Paul Heathenism 
 and Hebraism hindered the spiritual development of mankind. 
 The wheels of the human chariot, deep in a rut, had reached 
 the spot where the road ended; the wheels must be lifted 
 out, and a new highway made ready, reaching further on. 
 The religious problem of the human race then was to separ¬ 
 ate the human spirit from the Mistakes and Errors and Sins 
 
XXVI 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of the past, and furnishing itself with all the good of old 
 times, to press forward to new triumph. The old bottles 
 were empty, there must be new wine, and that put into new 
 bottles. The attempt to solve this problem was the greatest 
 revolution which the world ever saw. What destruction was 
 there of the old ! The flame of old mythologies, burning to 
 ashes, licked at the stars of heaven. What construction was 
 there also ! The “ Christian Theology ” and the “ Christian 
 Church ” are the most remarkable organization of thoughts 
 and men which the world has ever seen. 
 
 At this day the civilized world is divided into five great 
 world-sects having each a special Form of Beligion, all of 
 Caucasian origin, coming either from the Sanscrit or the 
 Hebrew stock,—the Brahmans, the Buddhists, the Jews, 
 the Mahometans, and the Christians. They are now in 
 a state of territorial equilibrium, neither gains much upon 
 the other by means of theological conversion. Soon after 
 the death of Buddha, Jesus, and Mahomet, their respective 
 Forms of Beligion spread with great rapidity. For many 
 centuries there has been no national conversion. In three 
 hundred years Christendom probably has not converted as 
 many thousand Heathen to its own mode of belief. The 
 Christians conquer, they do not convert, the barbarians in 
 either hemisphere. 
 
 These five great world-sects embrace perhaps eight hundred 
 million men ; and with them Theology, where studied at all, is 
 commonly studied in fetters. Just now the spiritual pro¬ 
 gress of the world is most promoted by the Christians. 
 This comes partly from the superiority of their Form of Be¬ 
 ligion ; but partly also from the youth and superior vigour of 
 the leading nations of Christendom. But here also the pro¬ 
 gressive power is quite unequally distributed. Christendom 
 is broken into three great sects, namely, the Greek, the Latin, 
 and the Teutonic Churches. 
 
 I. The Greek Church finds most of its followers in the 
 Greek and Sclavonic nations, and thus serves to unite the 
 oldest and the newest families of Christendom. 
 
 The Greeks, the sad remnants of a nation long since de¬ 
 cayed, have now little influence on the religious develop¬ 
 ment of the world. For a thousand years past the descend¬ 
 ants of the Basils and Cyrils, of Chrysostom and Athanasius, 
 of Origen and the Clements, have done nothing for the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXY11 
 
 religious, or intellectual, advance of Christendom. G-enius 
 flees from nations in their dotage and decay. At present 
 the Greeks seem to find no contradiction in their conscious¬ 
 ness between the theological doctrines of their Church and 
 the religious instincts, or intellectual convictions, of the in¬ 
 dividual Christian. They are unproductive, generating no 
 new religious sentiments, no new theological ideas. Too far 
 gone to be conservative, they do not even reproduce the 
 works of the ancient masters of Christian thought or Chris¬ 
 tian feeling. Athanasius would be more a stranger in his 
 own Alexandria than in any city of the west. Chrysostom 
 is better known at Berlin than Bvzantium. The churches 
 which once boasted that they had “the chairs of the Apos¬ 
 tles ” are now indebted to the charity of London and Boston 
 for the Epistles of Paul and James, even for common benches 
 to sit on. Even the manuscripts of the Bible and of the 
 Eatliers have followed the Star of Empire which stands still 
 in the west. Superstition takes the place of genius ; and 
 doting Greece seems as incapable of intellectual and religious 
 originality as of political freedom. There is an old age of 
 nations as of men. Most intellectual of nations, the golden 
 mouths of Homer and Chrysostom were fed at her bosom ; 
 Socrates and Aristotle, Origen and Athanasius, are her 
 children. She has rocked the classic and Christian civiliza¬ 
 tion in her cradle. Let the world’s benediction fall on that 
 aged head. 
 
 The Sclavonic population is not yet far enough advanced in 
 civilization to have any influence on the Theology' of Chris¬ 
 tendom. Some of this stock are members of the Latin 
 Church ; the vast majority are of the Greek communion. To 
 these sixty or eighty million men the Czar is an incarnate 
 God. He is their living Law, their living Gospel too, 
 superior to all constitutions of the State; to all traditions, 
 written, or only remembered, of the Church; to all aspira¬ 
 tions and intuitions of the individual man ; amenable only to 
 the dagger of the assassin. In theological and military 
 affairs he commands with equal audacity; and with the same 
 submissiveness his slaves obey. His will is alike the stand¬ 
 ard for the length of the priest’s beard, the fusee of the 
 cannon, and the doctrines of the catechism. He is the uni¬ 
 versal norm of faith and practice, the great fugleman of the 
 Sclavonic family, sixty or eighty millions strong. Oriental 
 
XXV111 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 fatalism preponderates in the immoveable Russian Church. 
 There is a mechanical adherence to the Byzantine forms of 
 worship. The old ritual is retained, the old symbol respected. 
 But the nation has not philosophical curiosity enough to 
 study and comprehend the old, nor historical interest suf¬ 
 ficient to republish, or read, the ancient masters of its own 
 Church; still less instinctive religious life enough to produce 
 new sentiments in the form of mysticism, new ideas in the 
 shape of dissentient Theology, or new actions in the guise of 
 fresh, original morality. With the people, the ceremonies of 
 the Church and obedience to the Czar, pass for religion ; with 
 the small class of educated men the cold negations of the 
 Trench mind in the eighteenth century, are taken for philoso¬ 
 phy. The nation is still sunk in semi-barbarism. Here and 
 there a few great minds, like the rivers of the empire, emerge 
 from this swamp and sweep on in grand majestic course. 
 There is probably but little contradiction between the reli¬ 
 gious instinct of the people and the ecclesiastical forms imposed 
 thereon. There is no new, normal Russian Science—Mathe¬ 
 matics, Physics, History, Psychology—to conflict with the 
 abnormal Theology inherited from Byzantium. The chief 
 characteristics of the Russian Church are Czarism and Immo¬ 
 bility — it is so steadfast that it never seems to stir. 
 But let no man mistake—there is no stillness to a young 
 nation’s mind, the root grows under-ground before the blade 
 appears. In time of peace •Russia controls Europe by her 
 diplomacy, in time of war by her bayonets. When she can¬ 
 not win a battle she can buy the result of victory. Doubt¬ 
 less these expectant conquerors of Europe—nay, its present 
 masters—will one day have a religious consciousness of their 
 own, with sentiments, ideas, and actions new and original. 
 When Caesar and Tacitus wrote of the Germans, who foresaw 
 the Luthers and Schleiermachers that were to come ? Nay, 
 in the time of Henry VIII. subtle Erasmus knew nothing of 
 the religious America soon to be born of that English mother. 
 
 II. The Latin Church includes a small part of the Scla¬ 
 vonic tribes in the north of Europe; the Celtic in Ireland 
 and Scotland; a portion of the Teutonic in Germany, Swit¬ 
 zerland, and the Low Countries; and the Romanic tribes in 
 the south and west of Europe—the Italo-Romans, the His- 
 pano-Romans, and the Gallo-Romans—with their descend¬ 
 ants in America and other quarters of the globe. A few 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 other disciples of the Latin Church are scattered up and down 
 the world, but they may be neglected in a sketch so brief as 
 this. 
 
 The Sclavonic, Celtic, and Hispano-Romanic members of 
 the Latin Church, at present, exercise no considerable spirit¬ 
 ual influence on the world. They affect Christendom chiefly 
 by their brute numbers and brute work. The Celtic and 
 Spanish populations are plainly in a state of decay; they can 
 only look back with pride to the days when Ireland and 
 Spain were the intellectual gardens of Europe ; or forward to 
 the time when the remnants of those once famous tribes shall 
 mingle their blood with the fresh life of other families still 
 vigorous w r ith new fire, and so shall add their tribute to the 
 great stream of humanity now spreading so rapidly over the 
 western continent and the islands of the sea. The impo¬ 
 tence of the Hispano-Romanic population has been demon¬ 
 strated by the experience of the last three hundred years. 
 Both Europe and America are witnesses to the sad fact. 
 When Germany invented the printing-press, Spain set up 
 the Inquisition. Dr Eaustus and Torquemada are types of 
 the two nations. Spain has not added a thought to the 
 world’s consciousness since Eerdinand and Isabella, by the 
 butchery of their subjects, won from the Pope the title of 
 “ Catholic.” In America the Spanish families have spread 
 only as the simoom in Africa, bringing storm and desolation. 
 The Theology of the Latin Church is a curse in South 
 America and Mexico. Loving the Inquisition, it hates the 
 printer and the schoolmaster : but like the ruins df Perse- 
 polis, it retains the great sculpture of ancient times. 
 
 Italy is Catholic in name and form. But the Italians and 
 the Greeks present us the same spectacle, with a difference 
 only in the degree of national decay ; a Tartar troop has sub¬ 
 jugated Greece ; Romanic Turks rule Italy in her decline, 
 the dissolution not so complete as yet. Eour great Italian 
 navigators made America known to the world. But the con¬ 
 tinent slipped through the fingers of Italy. Genoa, Flor¬ 
 ence, Yenice own not an inch of American soil. The tongue 
 of Columbus and Cabot is not the language of a town in the 
 new world. There is no Italian Church in the western hemi¬ 
 sphere : yet New York has better Italian newspapers than 
 Rome or Naples, Florence or Venice. Italy has added little 
 to the world’s thought since a Roman Pope forced Galileo to 
 
XXX 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 crouch and deny the movement of the world ; “ and yet it 
 moves,” leaving Pope and Rome and Italy behind. Martin 
 Luther fled out of the “ Christian Capital,” disgusted with 
 the heathenism he saw. Italy affects the world by her past 
 history, by her ancient art, and her literature of beauty. 
 The prestige of the proud city has still a charm for Christian 
 and for cultured men. The works of Leonardo, Angelo, 
 Raphael, Domenichino, Titian,—when will they die ? The 
 laurels of Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso lose not a leaf; what 
 thunder shall scorch the crown on the brows of Lucretius 
 and Yirgil, or blast the beauty of the Horatian muse ? 
 Rome, the widow of two civilizations, sits there on the shore 
 of the Tiber, sad, yet magnificently beautiful; she bears in 
 her bosom the relics of heathen and Christian martyrs, but 
 w T ith atheistic feet tramples the ashes of her own victims, 
 martyrs not less noble. The dust of Arnaldo da Brescia, and 
 of many a noble soul, yet cries out of the Tiber against her. 
 Ignoble sons, a populace of priests, at her feet consume 
 their bread. Austria and Prance court and insult her by 
 turns. The Queen-Mother, she has lost her power. 
 
 Yet piety still treads the aisles of the Italian Church ; but, 
 alas, it is the mediaeval piety which tolls bells, fasts, 'sings 
 antique psalms with a half-manly voice, prays, and gives 
 alms, but dares not think, nor work, nor do justly and walk 
 manly with its God. Popeism is to Italy what Czarism is to 
 Russia—only the Italian, more thoughtful, hates the hand 
 that rules. 
 
 In the educated classes scepticism seems chiefly to prevail; 
 the negations of the Prench and English Philosophers of the 
 last century. Able men reproduce the thoughts of Aristotle 
 and Aquinas. The bold voice of German philosophy is 
 echoed from the Sorbonne at Paris, and a feeble note of the 
 echo reaches the domos of Italy. Little new philosophy gets 
 spoken there. Who supposes the educated clergy believe 
 the Theology they profess, or trust the ritual and sacrament 
 which they administer ? It is plain there is a contradiction 
 in the consciousness of the Italian Church. There seems a 
 negation of the substance of religion, and an affirmation of 
 only its form. Italy does nothing to advance the Theological 
 Science of the world, or to diffuse a fairer form of religion 
 amongst mankind; the Roman Church, the mediaeval Night¬ 
 mare of the Caucasian race, presses her in her sleep. Shall 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 the Teutonic race spread over Italy, as the Sclavonic over 
 Greece ; the “ Barbarian ” possess those crops of ancient 
 art ? Who can say what shall succeed an effete race of men? 
 
 In the ecclesiastical condition of Trance, there is the same 
 wavering to and fro, which has long distinguished all the ac¬ 
 tion of this Gallo-Romanic people. Since the Reformation, 
 her course has been fearfully inconsistent. The Protestant 
 Theology came to Prance in the form of Calvinism. The 
 political character of that form of religion, so inimical to 
 royalty and all centralization of power, made it hateful to 
 the monarchic politicians, even Prancis I. regarding it as 
 hostile “ to all monarchy, divine or humanits severe 
 morality, its devout earnestness and simplicity, were detest¬ 
 able to the wealthy nobles. But it was welcomed by the 
 manufacturing and mercantile classes, and gained for a time 
 such privileges as even Catholicism did not possess. But 
 the Protestant star set in a sea of blood. Now Prance is 
 more ultramontane in its character than ever since the days 
 of Chancellor Gerson. In all things the nation fluctuates; 
 now with loud acclaim the public declare the unalienable 
 Bights of Man, and seek to build thereon a Human State ; 
 then, with acclamations yet louder, they welcome a despotism. 
 One day they deify a courtesan as Goddess of Reason, then 
 turn and worship the Pope, and then enthrone Louis Napo¬ 
 leon as Emperor. 
 
 At this day Prance seems to reproduce the phenomena of 
 the Lower Empire. Paris is a modern Byzantium—the pe¬ 
 riod of decadence appears to have begun. But there is in¬ 
 tellectual activity, profound, various, and versatile; no nation 
 had ever such talent for clearness of sight, accuracy of dis¬ 
 crimination, and attractive nicety of statement. Not be¬ 
 wildered as the Germans by the refinement of subtlety, the 
 Prench mind sees and reports the real distinctions however 
 nice. But no nation has a more divided consciousness. 
 Catholicism is the religion of the State ; with the wealthy 
 and educated classes of men it seems to be only a state-re¬ 
 ligion, a mere spectacle, as remote from their convictions as 
 the heathenism of Rome from the mind of Cicero and Caesar. 
 The priests forget the lessons of Bossuet, and are Roman 
 rather than Gallic, so mediaeval in their tendencies. But 
 the philosophers—the historians, naturalists, metaphysicians, 
 economists,—what is their religion ? The two extremes of 
 
 VOL. xi.— Theism , $c. c 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXX11 
 
 speculation are united in the consciousness of the nation, 
 which accepts alike Helvetius and Thomas a Kempis. France 
 does nothing to remove the contradiction from the mind of 
 Christendom; nay, she increases the trouble by developing 
 each extreme. The “ Eclectic Philosophy ” of modern France 
 does not appear as yet in the Theology of this most elastic 
 nation. 
 
 Yet at this time France has a great influence on the mind 
 of Christendom. The powerful Catholic party reprints the 
 old masters of thought, expounds the history of times gone 
 by, not forgetful that scholasticism—which sought to recon¬ 
 cile the history of the Church with the nature of man—was 
 borne in her bosom. Catholic France has more intellectual 
 life than all the other Romanic races, and does great service 
 to mankind. Abelard and Descartes were her children. But, 
 alas, her theological function is only conservative, not creative, 
 not even critical. The clean and the unclean are equally 
 taken into her ark, and equally honoured while there. 
 
 The philosophical party influence the world by their sci¬ 
 ence, history, and letters ; the rich wine of Germany is here 
 clarified, decanted, and made ready for popular use. But en¬ 
 lightened France does not study Theology. Few important 
 works in that science have got printed there siuce the “ Great 
 Encyclopedia” made its appearance, and smote Theology to 
 the ground. The Bible is printed in France as in England; 
 it is studied in Germany. The philosophers do little to 
 mediate between Sceptism—which stops with d'Holbach, or 
 Voltaire—and Superstition, which seeks to believe what is 
 impossible and because it is impossible. It is a strange phe¬ 
 nomenon that there should be a “ new advent of the Virgin 
 Mary” in France at the same time M. Comte publishes his 
 “ System of Positive Philosophy,” making “ a new Supreme 
 Being” out of the mass of men, all of them deemed merely 
 mortal! The old defences of the Popular Theology are re¬ 
 published ; but of what avail are they to men who have read 
 Bayle and the Encyclopedic ? At one extreme of society, the 
 Jesuits revive the Theology of Thomas Aquinas; at the other 
 extreme there is the foremost Science of the age. Religion 
 never fails from the heart of a nation—but when the The¬ 
 ology which is taught in the name of religion, and as the 
 indispensable condition thereof, is at variance with the con¬ 
 victions of every enlightened man; when it is not believed 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXXlll 
 
 by the priests who teach it more than by the philosophers 
 who will not smile at it,—why, the religious development of 
 the nation is attended with the greatest difficulties. 
 
 The Latin Church has disciples in the Teutonic family— 
 among Scandinavians, Germans, and Anglo-Saxons. But they 
 are chiefly found in those countries where the government is 
 most despotic, or where the intellectual activity of the people, 
 even of’the learned, is the feeblest. The cruel persecution of 
 the Irish Catholics, so long and so systematically carried on 
 by the British government, converted men and women of 
 Protestant families to the faith of the patient and heroic 
 sufferers. Of late years some of the most pious and most 
 learned men of England—so it seems to one at this distance 
 —have gone back to the bosom of the Latin Church. Doubt¬ 
 less there is much in that Church which the English Estab¬ 
 lishment has unwisely left behind. The relapse of English 
 Churchmen to Catholicism shows at least that there is some 
 life and a real desire for piety and religious tranquillity in that 
 least Protestant of the new Churches. "Within twenty years 
 past the Catholic Theology has had considerable influence on 
 the English mind. 
 
 The Scandinavian, Dutch, and Belgic Catholics have little 
 appreciable influence on the mind of Europe at this day. 
 The intellectual activity of these nations does not appear in a 
 Catholic form. Perhaps it would not be possible to mention 
 a Catholic book published in these countries during the pre¬ 
 sent century, which has had any appreciable influence on the 
 thought or feeling of Europe. Yet in Belgium there is con¬ 
 siderable religious life; at this distance it appears the most 
 religiously Catholic country of Europe. 
 
 Amongst other Catholics of the Teutonic family there is 
 more intellectual activity. Valuable books relating to Ca¬ 
 tholic Theology are published in the German tongue. He¬ 
 brew and Christian antiquity is carefully studied; much 
 thought goes to the exposition of the Scriptures, to the study 
 of ecclesiastical history. An attempt is made by able and 
 learned men to reconcile the Catholic Theology of the Middle 
 Ages with the most advanced speculations of Kant and Hegel. 
 Among the German Catholics of the present century there 
 are the honourable names of Jahn, Hug, Wessenberg, Mohler, 
 Movers, Staudenmaier, and others of perhaps equal merit, who 
 
XXXIV 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 would be an honour to any nation. Books full of religious 
 life also come up from the fresh consciousness of men,—both 
 mystical and practical. The Latin Church seems to have 
 more intellectual and religious life in the country of Martin 
 Luther than elsewhere in the world. But still the new 
 thought, the new feeling which controls the Teutonic popula¬ 
 tion is far from Catholic. The new religious life—mystical 
 or practical—is not Boman. The German Catholic move¬ 
 ment of Bonge only weakens the Latin Church. Of the six 
 eminent Catholics just named, half are obviously heretical; 
 two of them have been put in the Index. Intellectual activity 
 is the deadliest foe of the Boman Church and its mediaeval 
 divinity. Any attempt to reconcile her Theology with the 
 Science of the nineteenth century must needs end, as the 
 Schloasticism of the Middle Ages, in the conviction that the 
 two are natural opposites. 
 
 It is idle to suppose the Latin Church can accept anything 
 new and good from the science of these times. Her only 
 strength is to stand still ; if she moves she must perish: 
 “infallible,” Immobility and Intolerance are the indispensable 
 conditions of her existence. The Protestants may learn from 
 the Catholics as the Christians from the Jews and the 
 Heathens ; but it is not possible for the Catholics to learn 
 from the Protestants—more than for the Heathen, or the 
 Hebrew, to take any new truth from the Christians. 
 
 Celtic and other disciples of the Latin Church appear in 
 the portion of America settled by the Teutonic population. 
 They have influence only by their numbers and gregarious 
 action. The laity are subordinate to the clergy, who are the 
 lowest, the most ignorant, filthy, and oppressive ministers on 
 the continent, and as elsewhere, studiously keep the people in 
 darkness and the most slavish subjection. The Latin Church 
 has lost none of her intolerance and despotism by removing 
 to America; learning nothing and forgetting nothing, she 
 still claims the right to cut off the head of heresy with the 
 sword. She only wants the power. The toothless old lion 
 of the mediaeval wilderness, his claws pared ofl', roams abroad 
 in the new world ; he journeys in “ clippers,” in steamboats, 
 in railway cars; looks at the ballot-box, the free school, the 
 newspapers, and the Bible, hating them all. How and then 
 he roars after the old fashion; but no Inquisition echoes his 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 voice. He has no teeth, no claws ; is not a dangerous beast. 
 He loved European Slavery ; he loves also American Slavery; 
 and equally hates a negro and a scholar. 
 
 A great tide of immigration sets continually to America. 
 It is chiefly Catholics who come, many pious and holy men 
 among them with whom their Theology is the result of con¬ 
 viction, at least of satisfied experience ; many are ignorant, 
 low, and unfortunate men, who are Catholics from position, 
 they cannot yet go alone in religion, and wish a priest with 
 assumed authority to guide, or push, or drive them. Eear of 
 the priest and of hell is the hangsman’s knot to hold them in 
 order. But many are Catholics in Europe from indifference 
 or from fear. In America they cease to be Catholics. If 
 the immigrants from Catholic countries in the present cen¬ 
 tury, with their descendants, amount to four millions—a 
 moderate estimate—then it appears that out of thirteen per¬ 
 sons who were reputed Catholics in Europe, or are actually 
 born of such, not four remain in the communion of the Ca¬ 
 tholic Church of America. 
 
 In the Latin Church, as a whole, little is done to recon¬ 
 cile the actual consciousness of men with the traditional The¬ 
 ology. Scotus Erigena taught that “ all authority which is 
 not confirmed by right reason seems to be weak; ” “ accord¬ 
 ingly we must resort to reason first and authority afterwards.” 
 The Scholastic movement may be dated from these words, 
 whereon Erigena stood well nigh alone in his time. Now 
 the aim of the Latin Church—nay, it always has been—is 
 to subordinate Man to the Church, reason to the tradition of 
 the past, or the caprice of the present: accordingly she does 
 not allow her disciples to study any one of the sciences in the 
 normal manner, with perfectly free individuality of spirit. 
 Hence she aims to control the intellectual convictions of man¬ 
 kind, making her mediaeval catechism the norm of all science. 
 To this end she endeavours to keep the mass of her people 
 uneducated, for “ ignorance is the mother of devotion ” such 
 as she requires ; so she hates the free school and the free 
 pulpit and the free press. She hampers the learned class of 
 men and prohibits them from publishing their individual 
 opinions; and hinders them from reading the books which 
 contain the new sentiments and ideas of the times. The 
 bosom of this Church feeds the most odious tyrannies of the 
 age. Her clergy—with honourable exceptions—are the allies, 
 
XXXVI 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the advisers, and the tools of the tormentor; and deserve the 
 scorn and loathing of the people whom they deceive, beguile, 
 and oppress. The name of Jesuit in all countries has won a 
 reputation which no class of men ever had before. In America 
 the managers of the Catholic pulpits, with their subordinates, 
 favour the most iniquitious measures of Spanish cruelty, or of 
 our own Anglo-Saxon hard-heartedness. It is sad to see the 
 well-meaning, but ignorant, disciples of this Church in America 
 exploitered by a twofold Jesuitry—Romish priests unfeignedly 
 despotic, and American politicians pretending to democracy. 
 But I doubt not there are in the United States individual 
 priests of sound learning, of true and beautiful philanthropy, 
 of natural piety. Some have been born here, others have 
 found in republican and Protestant America the asylum which 
 the old world could not offer. In Europe there are many 
 such scattered abroad in the humble offices of the Church. 
 Kay, sometimes they find their way to a lofty place. Such 
 men in a Church which suits their consciousness break the 
 bread of humanity from house to house. Long after Chris¬ 
 tianity became one of the religions of the world there were 
 truly religious men and women who found rest for their souls 
 in Hebraism or Heathenism, in the faith of their fathers. 
 
 \^s The last great sect may be called the Teutonic Church, 
 distinguished by its Protest against some of the doctrines of 
 both its predecessors. Catholicism is the religion of the Ro¬ 
 manic families of Christendom ; Protestantism of the Teutonic 
 families. The love of free individuality, which has always 
 distinguished this great family of men, began its opposition to 
 the Latin Church more than six hundred years ago. From 
 Dutch Peter of Bruis, in the twelfth century, to Swabian Dr 
 Strauss in the nineteenth, the most powerful religious op¬ 
 ponents of the ancestral Theology of Christendom have been 
 of the Teutonic stock. Even the French anti-Catholicism of 
 the last century was of English origin, and went over the 
 Channel to make its fortune. 
 
 Protestants there are of other families scattered about in 
 all corners of Christendom. But those of the Sclavonic and 
 Ugrian families in the East of Europe, of the various Romanic 
 tribes in the South and West, have now little influence on the 
 mind of Christendom, and may be neglected in this brief 
 sketch. But the services of those tribes, in the cause of re¬ 
 ligious freedom, should not be forgot. The world ought to 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXXY1I 
 
 remember that, spite of ethnological diversities, human nature 
 is still the same, loving the true, the beautiful, the just, the 
 holy, and the good ; that Jesus and Paul were Jews ; that 
 Origen was an Alexandrian Greek ; that Pelagius was a Celt; 
 that Spain bore Servetus in her bosom; that Prance was the 
 mother of John Calvin; that Italy gave birth to Occhino, the 
 Socini, and many of their kin; that John Huss and Jerome 
 of Prague, though lighting their lamps at a Teutonic spark, 
 were yet of another family : that Sclavonians in Poland and 
 Mongol Ugrians in Transylvania afforded sympathy and shelter 
 to men who fled thither, centuries ago, wdth the Ark of the 
 Covenant of religious freedom in their hands. Still the 
 territorial home of religious freedom in modern times, and 
 the eminent love of free individuality in religion, belong dis¬ 
 tinctively to the various tribes of the Teutonic family. They 
 may be divided as before into Scandinavians, Germans, and 
 Anglo-Saxons. 
 
 The religious sentiments and theological doctrines of the 
 Scandinavians have little influence on the spiritual development 
 of the other nations of Christendom at present; and so in this 
 sketch they may be passed by, not without gratitude for the 
 obstinate heroism which went from the North with Gustavus 
 Adolphus and secured existence to Protestantism in the centre 
 of Europe when Jesuitism and royalty clutched at its life. 
 The Germans and Anglo-Saxons require further and extended 
 notice: for one of them is the most speculative and scientific, 
 and the other is the most practical people that can be found 
 anywhere in the history of mankind ; and both have a deep 
 and wide influence on the affairs of Christendom at this day. 
 
 In Germany the natural religiousness of the people has 
 been much hindered by the political circumstances of the 
 several States. The frequent wars that since the days of John 
 Huss have disturbed the land, which is the battle-field in the 
 long contest between ancient bondage and modern freedom ; 
 the oppressive character of the local governments ; the eccle¬ 
 siastical routine, established by the State and enforced with 
 the bayonet; the restrictions of industry in many forms— 
 all tend to hinder the development of religion in the people, 
 and still more in the most enlightened classes of the nation. 
 But serious and most profound and most varied attempts have 
 been made by this people to reconcile human consciousness 
 
XXXY111 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 with the traditional Theology of the Christian Church. In 
 some Universities Theology is studied with the same freedom 
 as the other sciences. Germany is the only country of Chris¬ 
 tendom where this Queen-mother of Science is treated with 
 such respect. Paul and Jesus are regarded as men, not as 
 babies. The mind of the Germans has some qualities well 
 fitted to solve the theological problems of the age. Intuitive 
 to a great degree, as their originality in many departments 
 abundantly proves ; deeply religious by nature, as the ante- 
 Christian modes of worship made plain to Roman Tacitus, and 
 as the mysticism of the nation has shown ever since the days 
 of Saint Bonifacius; creative and imaginative as no other 
 nation has ever been,—a fact proved by the wide-spread and 
 characteristic national music, by the rich and various literature 
 of the educated, and still more by the legends and songs, the 
 wild flowers of imagination, which have sprung up from the 
 bosom of the people, as the Porget-me-not, the Violet, the 
 Daisy, and manifold Heaths from their meadows and moun¬ 
 tains, for the creative imagination seems as universal in the 
 people as the plastic forms of vegetation in Nature ; laborious 
 and patient, so that their scholars are the most numerous and 
 learned that the human race ever bore ; cosmopolitan and 
 universal to a degree not deemed possible to the ancient 
 Greeks, counting nothing unclean because it is common, no¬ 
 thing inaccessible because lofty and hard to come by, and 
 nought barbarian however foreign ; subtle in discrimination ; 
 nice in analysis of facts of observation and still more of facts 
 of consciousness ; of great power to generalize, often running 
 to excess ; with a natural or acquired tendency to the world 
 of thoughts and feeling rather than to the details of commerce 
 and art; with a language so pliant that it takes any form 
 which the human mind needs for its most various purposes of 
 intellectual advancement, inferior only to the ancient Greek, 
 —it seems that the Germans are singularly fitted to solve the 
 theological problems of the world. All the new theological 
 thought of Christendom for the last three hundred years has 
 come from some tribe of this great Teutonic family. The 
 Roman State was broken by Saxon Herman; the Roman 
 Church by Saxon Luther on the same “ red earth ” of Ger¬ 
 many. In vain Rome cried “ Give me back Varus and his 
 legions ; ” in vain, “ Give me back my infallible Pope and bis 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 Indulgences.” Germany broke with Rome. The nation 
 which invented Gunpowder and the Printing-Press demanded 
 free individuality of spirit in matters of religion. 
 
 Since Luther’s time, and long before it, the German mind 
 has studied Theology devoutly and manfully. The interference 
 of government has indeed checked both religious feeling and 
 theological speculation; it has prevented neither. Pree 
 thought, however, has not found any general expression in the 
 pulpit, but in the colleges ; it speaks by the iron lips of the 
 press, not the living tongue of the preacher; it is addressed 
 to the learned, not the people. So while the shepherd has 
 revelled in intellectual plenty with all the corn of whole 
 Egypts at his command, the flock has grazed in scanty parish- 
 commons, waterless and brown, or browsed on Theology, on 
 dry and leafless catechisms. The learned philosopher must 
 preach what the unlearned kings command ; he may think, 
 and print for the army of scholars, w r hat heresy he will. The 
 result has been a sad one for the shepherd and the flock, the 
 philosopher and the kings. 
 
 The great army of theological scholars in Germany may 
 be divided into two grand divisions, namely : the Biblicists, 
 who make the Scriptures the norm and standard measure of 
 Religion, Theology, and all which pertains thereto ; and the 
 Philosophers, who make the human Spirit the standard mea¬ 
 sure in Theology as in all science, in religious, as in aesthetic, 
 ethical, or affectional affairs. 
 
 Each of these parties, the Biblicists and the Philosophers, 
 may be again divided into two brigades : namely, the Super- 
 naturalists who believe in miracles, and the Naturalists who 
 reject miracles ; and each brigade into its Right Wing and 
 its Left Wing; each of these into an Extreme Right and 
 Extreme Left. So in this theological host there are the 
 Biblicists and Philosophers, made up of biblical Naturalists 
 and biblical Supernaturalists, and of philosophical Naturalists 
 and philosophical Super naturalists ; with their Extreme Right 
 and Extreme Left. In the line of Christians, for mastery of 
 the world battling face to face against the great antagonistic 
 sects—Brahmans and Buddhists, Jews, Mahometans, and 
 Heathens,—the Biblicists stand next to the Catholics, the 
 Extreme Right of the Biblical Supernaturalists touching the 
 Left Wing of the Latin Church. The Philosophical Natural¬ 
 ists are at the opposite end of this German army, their Ex- 
 
si 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 treme Left bordering, not distinguishable", upon Atheists and 
 others of like sort. 
 
 All phases of Christian speculation and Christian feeling 
 are reproduced, examined, and judged by this army of stu¬ 
 dents. The air rings with the thunder of the captains and 
 the shouting. The ground is cumbered with the missiles— 
 historical, exegetical, philological, philosophical, mystical— 
 which are cast at the other sects, at the Catholics, and still 
 more at each other. But to drop the military metaphor—a 
 serious attempt is making in Germany to study Theology as 
 a Science, with freedom and impartiality. Mistakes and 
 Errors must needs be made. Many Sins also will be and are, 
 doubtless, committed, but much truth comes to light. Some 
 writers affirm the absolute truth of every word in the Bible; 
 others deny the immortality of the soul and the existence of 
 God, and demand the “ Rehabilitation of the Elesh in its 
 aboriginal supremacy over the spirit of man.” 
 
 Xot to dwell on the monstrous tyranny now exercised by 
 the government in some parts of Germany, to one at this 
 distance there appear three difficulties in the way of the 
 German Protestant Churches ; namely, the great mass of the 
 people are not even spectators to the controversy, for the 
 difference of culture between the scholar and the practical 
 man is so great that the two are incomprehensible to each 
 other. Then the scholars, in consequence partly of their 
 seclusion from the people and of their unpractical character, 
 use such vague terms that it is often difficult to apprehend 
 their meaning; subtler than Athenian and Alexandrian 
 Greeks, nice as the quibbling schoolmen of the Middle Ages, 
 they seem often entangled in their own intricate phraseology. 
 Again, they are intellectual and speculative more than ethical 
 and practical. 
 
 But spite of these faults Christendom owes a great obliga¬ 
 tion to the German Scholars of the last seventy years, not to 
 mention the noble men who preceded them, for the services 
 they have rendered mankind by exploring the depths of hu¬ 
 man consciousness and expounding the past history of the 
 race. The immoral and atheistical philosophers are but ex¬ 
 ceptions to the general rule. In the breaking up of old dog¬ 
 mas there is always much abnormal action; a revolution is a 
 turning over and over. 
 
 The Anfflo-Saxons are a burly-minded race of men: more 
 
 O * # 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xli 
 
 ethical than imaginative, artistic, or philosophical, they are 
 the most practical people at this day in all Christendom. 
 With consummate skill to organize things into machines, and 
 men into industrial States, they have now the same control¬ 
 ling force in the practical affairs of the Teutonic nations,— 
 yes, of Christendom,—which the Germans have in the world 
 of pure thinking. The Anglo-Saxon loves things ; the Ger¬ 
 man, thoughts. The one symbolizes his individuality by a 
 visible hedge about his field, distinguishing it from his neigh¬ 
 bour’s property ; the other by some peculiar Idea of his own ; 
 one conquers new lands, accumulates material riches, and 
 founds States ; the other conquers ideas, accumulates vast in¬ 
 tellectual treasures, and founds Systems of Philosophy and 
 Theology. The Anglo-Saxon is singularly direct, simple, and 
 devoid of subtlety ; his mind, his language, and his govern¬ 
 ment, are distinguished for plainness and simplicity—for ab¬ 
 sence of complication. He seizes things by their great rela¬ 
 tions, and seldom understands the nicer complications which 
 are so attractive to the Germans. This simplicity appears 
 also in the metaphysical systems of the Anglo-Saxons, and in 
 their Theology. There are numerous sects in their churches ; 
 but they depend on obvious and palpable differences, not on 
 nice and abstruse distinctions. The sects differ in the form of 
 church-government—by Bishops, by Elders, or the People ; 
 in the form of the ritual—baptizing in babyhood, or in man¬ 
 hood, from a porringer or a pond ; in the arithmetic of deity 
 —considering the Godhead as one person, or as more than 
 one; in the damnation, or salvation of mankind. These and 
 similar differences, easily comprehended by any one who can 
 count his fingers, are the matters on which the Anglo-Saxons 
 divide into sects. The subtle questions which vexed the 
 Greeks in the Patristic age, the Italians and Celts in the 
 Scholastic age, or the modern Germans in the Critical age, 
 seldom disturb the sturdy and straightforward intellect of the 
 English and Americans, intent on the ultimatum of practice, 
 not the process of speculation. 
 
 This great tribe of the Teutonic family—distributed into 
 English and Americans—is just now in a quite interesting 
 period of spiritual development. It has accepted.the tradi¬ 
 tional Theology of the Christian Church with various super¬ 
 ficial modifications ; has taken pains not to improve this The¬ 
 ology, deeming it not susceptible of improvement, not amenable 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xlii 
 
 to the mind of man. And it has now come to such a pass 
 that there is a plain and painful contradiction between the 
 Popular Theology and the consciousness of enlightened men. 
 
 In England the majority of the people are doubtless open 
 dissenters from the Established Church. It is not easy to 
 estimate the amount of secret dissent in that Church itself, 
 or of private disgust at the Popular Theology in the ranks of 
 professing dissenters. But to judge from the scientific, the 
 historical, and the aesthetic literature of England for the past 
 twenty years, and from the avidity with which profound trea¬ 
 tises that show the insufficiency of this Theology have been 
 received, it is plain that the mind of that country no longer 
 accepts the Theology of the churches. The negations of both 
 the biblical and philosophical Naturalists of Germany, have 
 had a rather silent, but apparently a profound, influence on 
 the theological opinions of the nation. Eminent talent seldom 
 appears in her churches—established, or dissenting. They 
 are not the centres of religious life. Valuable institutions, 
 as a whole, to keep the average men from falling back; valu¬ 
 able to urge some of the hindmost men forward, they yet do 
 not lead the nation in philanthropic and religious feeling, in 
 theological thought, or in moral action ; and accordingly fail 
 of the threefold function of the Church. 
 
 In America no form of religion is established by law; all 
 the world-sects, as well as all the Christian sects, are theore¬ 
 tically free and equal, subject to the same economical and 
 ethical supervision of the civil power. This circumstance has 
 been eminently advantageous to the spiritual growth of the 
 people. No clergymen can appeal to the bayonet to enforce 
 his feeble argument, or to bring hearers to his meeting-house. 
 A few laws depriving men of certain civil rights if they lack 
 the legal minimum of religious belief, or punishing them for 
 the utterance of antichristian opinions, still live on the statute- 
 book, but they are eminently exceptional in this country, and 
 fast becoming obsolete. All is left to the voluntary activity 
 of the people. The immediate practical consequence has been 
 a multiplication of churches, of preachers, and of hearers. 
 No Christian country of large extent is so well furnished with 
 meeting-houses and with clergymen ; in no country is so large 
 a proportion of the population found in the churches on Sun¬ 
 day ; nowhere is the Bible, with religious books and periodi¬ 
 cals, so common, and universally diffused. Theological Semi- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xliii 
 
 naries are erected by each denomination, and the means 
 provided for educating, up to the level of the nation, such 
 talent as moves towards the pulpit. Each denomination takes 
 great pains with the ecclesiastical training of the children. 
 Competition has the same effect in the churches as the 
 market. 
 
 The Americans have applied the first principles of the 
 Cartesian method in philosophy to everything except what 
 concerns Theology and Religion. There they have mainly 
 consented to walk by the old traditions. Rut the difference 
 between the old and the new, between the intellectual prin¬ 
 ciples of the accomplished and philosophic lyceum-lecturer, 
 and those of the theological preacher holding forth on the same 
 theme, from the same desk, to the same audience, springs in 
 the eyes of all. The contradiction between Theology and the 
 other Sciences is seen and understood by a large class of in¬ 
 telligent men; it is felt, but not understood, by a much larger 
 class, men of genuine piety who reproach themselves because 
 they doubt the miracles of the Bible and fail to relish the 
 eternal damnation of men, or because they take so little in¬ 
 terest in the dull routine of what in the churches is called 
 religion. With the wide spread of a very superficial intellect¬ 
 ual culture, and with the immense intellectual activity brought 
 out by the political institutions and the industrial movements 
 of the country, a great amount of doubt on theological matters 
 has also been developed. Sometimes it is public, oftener it is 
 secret. But it is plain that the contradiction between the 
 Theology of the churches and the Science, the Literature, the 
 Philanthropy, and the Piety of the age, is very widely felt 
 and pretty widely understood. 
 
 Clergymen endeavour to solve this contradiction in two 
 ways. Men of one party attempt to put man down and bring 
 him back to the old Theology. They deride new Piety; they 
 rail at new Philanthropy; they decry Science; and at each 
 new-comer in Theology who puts his yeasty wine into the old 
 bottles of the Church, or, still worse, into others of a newer 
 make and pattern, they call out “ Infidel! Atheist! Away 
 with him ! ” But they have no physical force at their com¬ 
 mand as in continental Europe. It is almost three hundred 
 years since Calvin burnt Unitarian Servetus alive at the stake, 
 where now a Unitarian college teaches the obnoxious opinion. 
 Quakers and Baptists are never disturbed in Boston which 
 
xliv 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 once shed the blood of the founders of these earnest and im¬ 
 portant sects. 
 
 The other party, scanty in numbers, endeavours to bring 
 Theology up to the level of the science of the times, and to 
 engage the churches in new piety and new philanthropy. 
 
 The retrogressive and the progressive party are both needed; 
 and have valuable functions to perform. There is always 
 danger that some good things should be left behind; and not 
 only feeble and timid persons, but war-worn veterans also, are 
 therefore properly put in the rear of the human army march¬ 
 ing to the promised land; else baggage might be abandoned, 
 and even stragglers lost. The Christians left good things be¬ 
 hind in the Hebrew and Heathen cities they marched out of, 
 or passed through; they must send back and bring away all 
 those things. The Protestants rejected much that was ex- 
 . cellent, perhaps indispensable to the welfare of mankind; so 
 pious men and women must go over to the Latin Church and 
 reclaim it. 
 
 How is the Anglo-Saxon Church, with its many denomina¬ 
 tions, performing its theological and religious function ? Cer¬ 
 tainly not very well. As a whole it rebukes no great popular 
 Sins ; it corrects no great popular Mistakes and Errors. The 
 Churches of England and America do not rebuke the actual 
 evils of these two nations; they preach mainly against small 
 vices which the controlling classes of the people have little 
 temptation to commit. In England and America the strong 
 often exploiter the weak, consciously, or ignorantly. The Anglo- 
 Saxon—wdiether Briton or American—has a most inordinate 
 lust for land: he wishes to annex the universe to his estate. 
 How has England pillaged India; how has America plundered 
 Mexico, and now goes “ filibustering ” towards Cuba ! The 
 commercial policy of Christian England is quite as selfish, and 
 almost as cruel, as the military policy of Heathen Pome— 
 abroad it aims to impoverish other countries, ruin their manu¬ 
 factures, and cripple their commerce, in order to heap up 
 enormous riches in England ; at home it aims to concentrate 
 great wealth, and its consequent power, in the hands of a few 
 strong men who shall exploiter the mass of the people. The 
 policy of America is to keep one seventh part of the popula¬ 
 tion in such slavery as exists nowhere else in Christendom ; 
 nay, more, the Christian “ Barbary States of America ” cherish 
 the slavery which the Mahometan Barbary States of Africa 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xlv 
 
 have cast off with scorn and loathing. The English and Ame- 
 * rican Churches do not oppose the Sins, but encourage them. 
 
 In the ante-Christian governments the State and the Church 
 were identical, the national religion was prescribed by the 
 national law and enforced by the sword of the magistrate. 
 The function of official priests was to appease the wrath of 
 God, or purchase his favour ; it was not to develope the spirit 
 of the people. In Rome, such was the eclectic spirit of the na¬ 
 tion, all forms of devotion were allowed to exist along with 
 the national religion, so long as they did not disturb the peace 
 of the city. But when Christianity came, affirming the unity 
 of God and the falseness of all antecedent, or other, forms of 
 religion, the Roman State, in preserving its own form of wor¬ 
 ship, must of necessity attempt to suppress the Christian re¬ 
 ligion. Christianity grew up in opposition to the magistrate. 
 So there were at the beginning two powers in the nation,—the 
 State, the carnal temporal power; and the Church,—the 
 spiritual power whose kingdom was “ not of this world.” 
 "When Christianity became a “ lawful religion,” and when it 
 became the national religion, there still continued this division 
 between the State and Church; two distinct organizations 
 were established, the “ carnal ” and the “ spiritual.” This 
 separation of the civil and religious authorities has been of 
 great value to the world. In the Middle Ages, the Church 
 was one established power, and the State another, each inde¬ 
 pendent. The Church was a critic and check upon the State, 
 the State upon the Church. Ecclesiastical conformity was 
 often political dissent. The government of Christendom was 
 monarchic ; but the monarchy was two-headed. The practical 
 effect of this was important, in many respects, to mankind. 
 But in the Roman States, and in all countries which owed 
 exclusive civil obedience to the Pope, the Church swallowed 
 up the State; the “ spiritual ” became also the “ carnal ” 
 power, and the people were ruled with terrible oppression. 
 The same result took place when the “ carnal ” became the 
 “ religious ” power, as it sometimes did. In both of these 
 cases the monarchy became single-headed; the State and the 
 Church were merged into one ; there was no city of refuge for 
 the victim of the magistrate, or of the priest, to fly to. If he 
 ran from the king’s axe, he fell over the Pope’s fagot. Thus 
 was he overtaken by one or the other horn of the tyrannical 
 dilemma, and if he escaped beheading, he was sure to be 
 
xlvi 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 burned. In countries where this division of powers was recog¬ 
 nized, the man lied from the court-house to the temple, or 
 from the temple to the court-house, and humanity had a fairer 
 opportunity to obtain justice. 
 
 But when the scholastic philosophers, after struggling for 
 centuries, had failed to reconcile the consciousness of man¬ 
 kind with the dogmas of the Church ; when the Church itself 
 became corrupt in head and members, and the priests of 
 Christendom were more tyrannical and shameless than the 
 magistrates of Heathendom, then human consciousness broke 
 with the Roman Church. But the people, long accustomed to 
 passive submission under the State and Church, gained ap¬ 
 parently little by the change. The kings, or other civil magis¬ 
 trates, took possession of the spiritual power which in Pro¬ 
 testant countries had been wrested from the hands of the 
 Pope. Thus as the Church grew weak the State again grew 
 strong, and assumed the same authority in matters of religion 
 which had formerly been claimed by the Pope in Christian, or 
 by the king in Heathen countries. This was not effected with¬ 
 out a struggle. In some countries the spiritual power, in 
 carnal hands, became absolute; in others it was conditioned 
 by a constitution; but in all the countries of Protestant 
 Europe, the State still claims eminent domain over the Church, 
 prescribes the ritual, and establishes the creed. Thus in 
 Prussia the King demands that every man shall be a soldier 
 and a church-member ; he is drilled in the manual exercise 
 and the catechism. Even England has her national religion, 
 and rejects with scorn from her two wealthy universities all 
 who cannot subscribe to the contradictory formularies of be¬ 
 lief : though she allows dissent, she by no means admits the 
 dissenters to an equality with the disciples of her own Church, 
 in which the aristocratic element preponderates over the 
 popular—for the congregation is only of “ dead-heads,” which 
 have no voice in making the doctrines of the Church, or even 
 in electing its minister. 
 
 In .this way the Protestant Church of Europe has lost one 
 of its most valuable functions—it is no longer a critic on the 
 State, it is the servant and creature of the State. If the 
 magistrates are corrupt, the laws unjust and oppressive, the 
 clergy dare not say a word against the iniquity. The Bench 
 of Bishops is seldom found to be more humane than the House 
 of Lords where it sits ; and the Protestant Pulpit, in these 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xlyii 
 
 countries, takes special care not to rebuke any popular Error 
 or Sin. So the Established Church in Protestant countries is 
 commonly found siding with Government and not with the 
 People: it attends to the Eorm—the ritual and the creed— 
 not to the Substance of Eeligion. It docs not demand a free 
 mind, free conscience, free affection, and a free soul, all in 
 their normal mode of activity. 
 
 In America there is no State-religion and no national 
 Church. Each denomination determines its creed for itself, 
 and manages its own affairs. But such is the dependence of 
 the preacher on his parish for pecuniary support, and so much 
 is that thought to depend on servility to the controlling and 
 wealthy classes of society, that any popular wickedness is 
 pretty sure of the support of the greater part of the American 
 clergy. This is eminently the case in the great towns—the 
 seat of riches, of commercial and political power. The minister 
 may forget his God, his Conscience, his Self-respect; he must 
 not attempt to correct “ the hand that feeds him.” Slavery, 
 the great sin of America, has long found its most effectual 
 support in the American Church. The powerful denomina¬ 
 tions are on its side ; the Tract Society says nothing against 
 it; the leaders of the sects, with the rarest exception, are in 
 favour of this wickedness. When prominent political men 
 deny that there is any law of God to overrule the most 
 wicked enactment of corrupt politicians, the wealthy Churches 
 say “ Amen!” 
 
 In England the Churches seem no better ; they can rebuke 
 American, but not British Sins, as the American British and 
 not their own. In the military age the spiritual and carnal 
 powers w^ere independent of each other, and mutual checks ; 
 in the commercial age the spiritual depends on the carnal 
 power for daily bread, and dares not offend the hand that 
 feeds it; forgetting the Eye w T hich “ seeth not as man seeth.” 
 The great theological movement of the Anglo-Saxons, the 
 great religious movement, is not carried on by the Churches, 
 but in spite of them. 
 
 To sum up the theological and religious condition of the 
 Protestant countries as a w r hole, it must be confessed that 
 there is a great contradiction in the consciousness of the 
 people; that the Popular Theology is at variance with the 
 other sciences, and is fading from the respect of the people. 
 A great intellectual movement goes on, a great moral, philan- 
 
 yol. xi.— Theism, §c. (1 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xlviii 
 
 thropic, and religious movement, but the preachers in the 
 Churches do little directly either to diffuse new truths, or to 
 kindle a deeper sentiment of piety, or philanthropy. The 
 Protestant Church counts this its chief function—to appease 
 the wrath of God and to administer the Scriptures to men, 
 not to promote piety and morality. 
 
 Take the whole Christian Church at this day—where is the 
 vigour, the energy, the faith in God, the love for man, which 
 marked the lives of those persons who built churches with 
 their lives ? Taken as a whole, the clergy of Christendom op¬ 
 pose the foremost science, justice, philanthropy, and piety of 
 the age. The ecclesiastical institutions seem to bear the same 
 relation to mankind now as the ecclesiastical institutions of 
 the Hebrews and Heathens two thousand years ago. Every 
 year the Science of the scholar separates him further and 
 further from the Theology of the Churches. The once united 
 Church is rent into three. The infallibility of the Homan 
 Church—who believes it ? the Pope, the superior Catholic 
 clergy ? The Infallibility of the Bible,—its divine origin, its 
 miraculous inspiration,—do the Scholars of Christendom be¬ 
 lieve that in defiance of Mathematics, Physics, History, and 
 Psychology? They leave it to the clergy. The Trinity is 
 shaken ; men lose their faith in the efficacy of water-baptism, 
 and other artificial sacraments, to save the souls of men ; 
 miracles disappear from the belief of all but the clergy. Do 
 they believe them? The Catholic doubts the mediaeval miracles 
 of his own Church ; it is in vain that the Virgin Mary reap¬ 
 pears in Switzerland and Prance ; that Saint Januarius an¬ 
 nually liquifies his blood ; that statues weep : the stomachs of 
 reapers refuse such bread. It avails nothing to threaten 
 scientific doubters with eternal hell. Superior talent forsakes 
 the Church,—even in Catholic countries, there are few clergy¬ 
 men of genius, or even great talent. In Protestant Germany 
 theological genius teaches in the college, not in the pulpit; 
 and with new science destroys the mediaeval opinions it was 
 once set to defend. Will the spirit of the human race come 
 back and reanimate the dry bones of dead Theology ? When 
 the mummies of Egypt shall worship again their half-for¬ 
 gotten gods—Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis ; when mankind goes 
 back to the other sciences of half-savage life the Theology of 
 that period may be welcomed again. Not till then. 
 
 Is Eeligion to die out of the consciousness of man! Be- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xlix 
 
 iieve it not. Even the protests against “ Christianity ” are 
 oftenest made by men full of the religious spirit. Many of 
 the “ Unbelievers ” of this age are eminent for their religion ; 
 atheists are often made such by circumstances. Even M. 
 Comte must have a New Supreme— Nouveau Grand Eire ,— 
 and recommends daily prayer to his composite and progressive 
 deity! There was never a time when Christendom was so 
 pious—in love of Giod ; so philanthropic—in love of man ; so 
 moral—in obedience to the law of God ; so intellectual— 
 knowing it so well; so rich—possessing such power over the 
 material world. Yet through lack of a true Idea of God, 
 from want of institutions to teach and apply the Absolute 
 Religion—there is not that conscious and total religious ac¬ 
 tivity wdiich is indispensable for the healthy and harmonious 
 development of mankind. 
 
 AVhat need there is of a new religious life! The three 
 great public forces of the leading nations of Christendom,— 
 Business, Politics, and the Press, excite a great intellectual 
 activity. Christendom was never so thoughtful as now. 
 Shall this great movement of mind be unreligious, without 
 consciousness of God ? It will not be controlled by the The¬ 
 ology of the Christian Church. But it is not a wicked age. 
 What philanthropies are there new-born in our time ? Catho¬ 
 lic France is rich in the literature of charity, shaming the 
 haughtiness of the Anglo-Saxon Church. Yet within not 
 many years at what great cost has England set free almost a 
 million men “ owned ” as slaves ! Nay, Russian Nicholas 
 emancipates his serfs. Socialists seek to abolish poverty, and 
 all the curses it brings on the body and the spirit of man. 
 Wise men begin to see that the majority of criminals are the 
 victims of society more than its foes, and seek to abolish the 
 causes of crime ; what pains are taken with the poor, the crazy, 
 the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb ; nay, w T ith a fool! 
 Great men look at the condition of woman—and generous- 
 hearted women .rise up to emancipate their sex. The Churches 
 are busy with their Theology and their ritual, and cannot at¬ 
 tend much to these great humane movements; they must 
 appease the “ wrath of God,” or baptize men’s bodies with 
 water and their minds with wind. Still the work goes on, 
 but without a corresponding consciousness of God, and con¬ 
 nection with the religious emotions. No wonder Christendom 
 seems tending to anarchy. But it is only the anarchy which 
 comes of the breaking up of darkness. 
 
1 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 There must be a better form of Religion. It must be free, 
 and welcome the highest, the proudest, and the widest thought. 
 Its organization must not depend on the State ; it must ask 
 no force to bring men to meeting, to control a man’s opinions, 
 to tell him on what day he shall worship, when he shall pray, 
 what he shall believe, what he shall disbelieve, or what he 
 shall denounce. 
 
 The Christian world has something to learn, at this day, 
 even from the Atheist; for he asks entire Freedom for human 
 nature,—freedom to think, freedom to will, freedom to love, 
 freedom to worship if he may, not to w r orship if he will not. 
 And if the Christian Church had granted this freedom there 
 would have been no atheism. If Theology had not severed 
 itself from Science, Science would have adorned the Church 
 with its magnificent beauty. If the Christian Church had 
 not separatee! itself from the world’s life there would be no 
 need of anti-slavery societies, temperance societies, education 
 societies, and all the thousand other forms of philanthropic 
 action. A new religious life can beautify all these movements 
 into one. There is one great truth which can do it: that 
 God is not finite, as all previous forms of religion have taught, 
 but is Infinite in His Power, in His AVisdom, in Ilis Justice, 
 in His Holiness, and in His Love. 
 
 It is for earnest men of this age to protest against the evils 
 of the Christian Church, as Luther against the Catholic 
 Church, as Paul against the Heathen, as Jesus against the 
 Hebrew Church. This can be done only by a Tiety deeper, 
 a Philanthropy wider, and a Theology profounder than the 
 Church has ever known ; by a life which, like that of Luther, 
 Paul, Jesus, puts the vulgar life of the Churches all to shame. 
 The new Church must gather to its bosom all the truth, the 
 righteousness, and beauty of the old world, and add other 
 excellence new got from God. Piety must be applied to all 
 daily life, to politics, to literature, to all business : it must be 
 the creed which a man repeats as lie delivers goods over his 
 counter, repeats with his hands, which he works into every¬ 
 thing that he manufactures. That is a Piety already on its 
 way to success, and sure to triumph. 
 
 There are evils which demand a religious hand to redress 
 them. The slave is to be freed, the State and Society to be 
 reorganized ; woman is to be elevated to her natural place ; 
 political .corruption to be buried in its grave. Pauperism 
 is to end, war to cease, and the insane lust of our times for 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 li 
 
 gold and pleasure is to be tamed and corrected. This can be 
 done only by a deep religious life in the heart of the people. 
 All great civilizations begin with God. 
 
 It is a sad thing to look at the noble and large-minded men 
 who in this century have become disgusted with the Popular 
 Theology, and so have turned off from all Conscious Religion. 
 In a better age they would have been leaders of the world’s 
 piety. It is for men who have sought to cut loose from every 
 false tradition, to worship the Infinite Pather and Infinite 
 Mother ! They may scold, and are then the Church terma¬ 
 gant, worth nothing but their criticism. They may toil to 
 remove these evils, their life making a new Church, and then 
 they are the Church beneficent; their influence will go into 
 the worlds life, and hasten the development of mankind. 
 
 How much does all Christendom need a new Eorm of Reli¬ 
 gion, to reconcile the understanding, to bring the conscience, 
 and the heart, and the soul, to the great work of life ! Then 
 if men are faithful, when eighteen hundred other years have 
 passed by, they will have produced an influence in the world’s 
 history like that of the great Christian apostle, who went to 
 the Gentiles so poor and so obscure that no man knoAvs of his 
 whereabouts, or his whence, or his whither. How, as of old, 
 “ God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound 
 the mighty,” and the true to confound the false. There is no 
 reason to fear. The Infinite God is perfect Cause and per¬ 
 fect Providence ; He made the universe from a perfect motive, 
 of perfect materials, for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect 
 means thereto. Shall He fail of his intentions ? Man marches 
 forth to fresh triumphs in Religion as in Philosophy and Art. 
 What is gained once is gained for all time, and for eternitv. 
 Hebraism, Heathenism, Christianism are places where Man 
 halted in his march towards the Promised Land, encampments 
 on his pilgrimage. He rests awhile ; then God says to him, 
 “ Long enough hast thou compassed this Mountain; turn and 
 take thy journey forward. Lo ! the Land of Promise is still 
 before thee.” In the anarchy of this age are we taught to 
 feel, 
 
 “ That man’s heart is a holy thing, 
 
 And Nature, through a world of death, 
 
 Breathes into him a second breath, 
 
 More searching than the breath of spring.” 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THEISM, ATHEISM, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 I. 
 
 OF SPECULATIVE ATHEISM REGARDED AS A 
 THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 THE FOOL HATH SAID IN HIS HEART, THERE IS NO GOD.- 
 
 PSALM XIY. 1. 
 
 On this and several following Sundays I propose to 
 speak of Atheism, of the Popular Theology, and of pure 
 Theism : of each first as a Theory of the Universe, and 
 then as a Principle of Practical Life; first as speculative 
 Philosophy, then as practical Ethics. 
 
 The idea which a man forms of God is always the most 
 important element in his speculative theory of the uni¬ 
 verse, and in his particular, practical plan of action for 
 the church, the state, the community, the family, and his 
 own individual life. You see to-day the vast influence of 
 the popular idea of God. All the great historical civiliza¬ 
 tions of the race have grown out of the national idea which 
 was formed of God, or have been intimately connected with 
 it. The popular theology, which at first is only an ab¬ 
 stract idea in the heads of the philosophers, by and by 
 shows itself in the laws, the navies, the forts, and the 
 jails; in the churches, the ceremonies, and the sacraments, 
 the weddings, the baptisms, and the funerals; in the 
 hospitals, the colleges, the schools, in all the social chari¬ 
 ties ; in the relation of a husband and wife, parent and 
 child; in the daily work and the daily prayer of each 
 
 VOL. xi.— Theism , §c. 1 
 
2 
 
 SPECULATIVE ATHEISM.- 
 
 man. Thus, what at first is the abstractest of thoughts, 
 by and by becomes the concretest of things. If a man 
 concludes there is no God at all, that conclusion, negative 
 though it is, will have an immense influence; subjectively 
 on his feelings and opinions, objectively on his outward 
 conduct; subjectively as the theory of the universe; ob¬ 
 jectively as the principle of practical life. 
 
 Speculative Theism is the belief in the existence of God, 
 in one form or another; and I call him a Theist who be¬ 
 lieves in any God. By Atheism I mean absolute denial 
 of the existence of any God. A man may deny actuality 
 to the Hebrew idea of God, to the Christian idea of God, 
 or to the Mahometan idea of God, and yet be no atheist. 
 
 The Hebrews formed a certain conception of a being 
 with many good qualities, and some extraordinarily bad 
 qualities, and called it Jehovah, and said, “ That is God : 
 it is the only God.” The majority of Christians form a 
 certain conception of a being with more good qualities 
 than are ascribed to Jehovah, but with some most atro¬ 
 ciously evil qualities, and call it Trinity, or Unity, and 
 say —“ That is God : it is the only God.” 
 
 Now a man may deny the actuality of either or both 
 these ideas of God, and yet be no atheist. He may do 
 so because he is more of a theist than the majority of 
 Hebrews or Christians ; because he has a higher develop¬ 
 ment of the religious faculty, and has thereby obtained a 
 better idea of God. Thus the Old Testament prophets, 
 with a religious development often far in advance of their 
 Gentile neighbours, declared that Baal was no God. Of 
 course the worshipper of Baal called the Hebrew prophets 
 atheists, for they denied all the God that Gentiles knew. 
 Paul, in the New Testament, more of a theist than the 
 Greeks and Asiatics about him, with a larger religious 
 development than they dreamed of, said— t<r an Idol is 
 nothing.” That is, there is no divine being which cor¬ 
 responds exactly to the qualities ascribed to any material 
 idol. Their idea of God, said Paul, lacked actuality; it 
 was a personal or national wliimsey; not a perfect sub¬ 
 jective representation of the objective fact of the universe; 
 but only a mistaken notion of that fact. 
 
 If a man has outgrown the Hebrew, or common 
 Christian idea of God, he may say what Paul said of the 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 3 
 
 idol ^—“It is nothing.” He will not be an atheist, but 
 a theist all the more. The superior conception of God 
 always nullifies the inferior conception. 
 
 Thus as the world grows in its development, it neces¬ 
 sarily outgrows its ancient ideas of God, which were only 
 temporary and provisional. As. it goes forward, the an¬ 
 cient deities are looked on first as devils; next as a mere 
 mistaken notion which some men had formed about God. 
 For example, a hundred years ago it was the custom of 
 the learned men of the Christian church to speak of the 
 Heathen deities,—Jupiter, Apollo, Venus, and the rest,— 
 as devils. They did not deny the actual existence of 
 those beings, only affirmed them to be not Gods but devils 
 or “fallen angels;” at any rate, evil beings. Some of 
 the heretics among the early Christians said the same of 
 the Hebrew Jehovah, that he was not the true God, but 
 only a devil who misled the Jews. Now-a-days well- 
 educated men who still use the terms, say that Jupiter, 
 Apollo, Venus, and the others, were only mistaken notions 
 which men formed of God. They deny the actuality of 
 the idea, “ Jupiter is nothing.” A man who has a higher 
 conception of God than those about him, who denies their 
 conception, is often called an atheist by men who are less 
 theistic than he. Thus the Christians who said the 
 Heathen idols were no gods, were accounted atheists by 
 the people, and accordingly put to death. Thus Jesus of 
 Nazareth was accused of blasphemy, and crucified by men 
 who had not a tithe of the religious development and 
 reverence for God which he possessed. The men who 
 centuries ago denied the actuality of the Trinity were 
 put to death as atheists—Servetus among the rest, John 
 Calvin himself tending the flames. 
 
 At this day the Devil is a part of the popular Godhead 
 in the common theology, representing the malignant ele¬ 
 ment which still belongs to the ecclesiastical conception 
 of Deity. If a man says there is no devil, he is thought 
 to be, if not an atheist, at least very closely related to an 
 atheist. He denies a portion of the popular Godhead; 
 is constructively an atheist; an atheist as far as it goes; 
 atheistic in kind, as much as if he denied the whole God¬ 
 head, when he would obviouslv be branded an atheist. 
 
 I use the word Atheism in quite a different sense. It 
 
4 
 
 SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 is the absolute denial of any and all forms of God; the 
 denial of the Genus; the denial of all possible ideas of 
 God,—highest as well as lowest. 
 
 At this day there are some philosophers, quite eminent 
 men too, who call themselves atheists, and in set terms 
 deny the actuality of any possible idea of God. They 
 say the idea of God is a mere whimsey of men, and God 
 is not a fact of the universe. Man has a notion of God, 
 as of a ghost, or devil; but it is a pure subjective fancy— 
 something which he has spun out of his own brain, for 
 there is nothing in the universe to correspond thereto. 
 Man has an idea of God, but the universe has no fact of 
 God. 
 
 These men do not mean to scoff at others. They teach 
 their doctrines with the calmness and precision of philo¬ 
 sophy, and affirm atheism as their Theory of the Universe. 
 It is a conclusion they have deliberately arrived at. They 
 are not ashamed of it; they do not conceal it; do not 
 ostentatiously set it forth. 
 
 I am doing these men no injustice in giving them this 
 name, because they claim the style and title of atheists, 
 and professedly teach atheism. They are not always 
 bigoted atheists, but sometimes philosophical. A few of 
 them are in this country, founding schools and sects of 
 their way of thinking. Some of them are men of quite 
 superior ability, men of very large intellectual culture. 
 They seem to be truth-loving and sincere persons; con¬ 
 scientious, just, humane, philanthropic, and modest men 
 aiming to be faithful to their nature, their whole nature. 
 They are commonly on the side of man, as opposed to 
 the enemies of man ; on the side of the people, as against 
 a tyrant; they are, or mean to be, on the side of truth, of 
 justice, and of love. I shall not throw stones at these 
 men; I shall devise no hard names against them: they 
 will get abuse enough without my giving them any at all. 
 I feel great tenderness towards them, and very great 
 compassion—which I suppose they would not thank me 
 for. Some of them I know personally; others by their 
 reputation; some by their writings. I think they are 
 much higher in their moral and religious growth than a 
 great many men who are always saying to God—“ I go, 
 sir,” and yet never stir. These are men who have made 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 sacrifices even to be faithful; and, without knowing it, 
 they have a good deal of practical religiousness of 
 character, both in its subjective form of piety, and in its 
 objective form of a personal and social morality. 
 
 I do not believe that such men are real atheists, though 
 they think themselves so; and I only call them so to 
 distinguish their doctrines, and because they themselves 
 assume the name. I think the philosophical atheist lacks 
 actuality as much as a devil or a ghost. 
 
 The Bible says, “ The fool hath said in his heart, There 
 is no God.” If the fool says so, I shall believe the fool 
 thinks so; and if the fool holds up his five fingers and 
 says, “ There is no hand,” I shall believe the fool thinks 
 so. But when a philosopher says there is no God, I do 
 not'believe he thinks so, only that he thinks he thinks so. 
 A man may sometimes think he sees a thing when he 
 does not see it; and so a man may think he thinks a 
 thing when he does not think it. A philosophical and 
 consistent atheist is as much an impossibility, I think, as 
 a mathematician who cannot count two; or as a round 
 square, or a three-cornered circle. I shall never believe 
 that a sane man who can understand the multiplication 
 table is an atheist, though he may call himself so. But 
 inasmuch as atheism is set up as a theory of the universe, 
 let us look at it and see what real Speculative Atheism is. 
 That is the first thing. 
 
 There is a mere formal atheism, which is a denial of 
 God in terms. A man says, There is no God f no God 
 that is self-originated, who is the Cause of existence, who 
 is the Mind and the Providence of the universe: and so 
 the order, beauty, and harmony of the world of matter 
 or mind does not indicate any plan or purpose of Deity. 
 But, he says, Nature—meaning by that the whole sum 
 total of existence—is powerful, wise, and good; Nature 
 is self-originated, the Cause of its own existence, the 
 mind of the universe, and the Providence thereof. There 
 is obviously a plan and purpose, says he, whereby order, 
 beauty, and harmony are brought to pass ; but all that is 
 the plan and purpose of Nature. 
 
 Very well. In such cases the absolute denial of God 
 is only formal, but not real. The Quality of God is still 
 admitted, and affirmed to be real; only the representative 
 
6 
 
 SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 of that quality is called Nature, and not called God. That 
 is only a change of name. The question is this —“ Are 
 there such Qualities in existence as we call God ? ” It is 
 not, “ How shall we name the qualities ?One man 
 may call the sum total of these qualities Nature, another, 
 Heaven, a third Universe, a fourth Matter, a fifth Spirit, 
 a sixth Geist , a seventh God, an eighth Thcos , a ninth 
 Allah, or what he pleases. Spinoza may call God Naturci 
 naturans , and the rest of the universe Natura naturata ; 
 Berosus may call God El, and the rest of the Universe 
 Thebal. They all admit the existence of the thing so 
 diversely entitled. The name is of the smallest conse¬ 
 quence. All those men that I know, who call themselves 
 atheists, really admit the actual existence of the qualities 
 I speak of. 
 
 Real Atheism is a denial of the existence of any God; 
 a denial of the Genus God; of the actuality of all possible 
 ideas of God. It denies that there is any Mind or Being 
 which is the Cause and Providence of the universe, and 
 which intentionally produces the order, beauty, and har¬ 
 mony thereof with the constant modes of operation 
 therein. To be consistent, it ought to go a step further, 
 and deny that there is any law, order, or harmony in 
 existence, or any constant modes of operation in the 
 world. The real Speculative Atheist denies the existence 
 of the qualities of God; denies that there is any Mind of 
 the universe, any self-conscious Providence, any Provi¬ 
 dence at all. If he follows out his principle he must 
 deny the actuality of the Infinite, deny that there is any 
 Being or Cause of finite things which is self-consciously 
 powerful, wise, just, loving, and self-faithful. To him 
 there are only finite things,—each self-originated, self- 
 sustained, self-directed,—and no more; the universe, 
 comprising the world of matter, and the world of mind, 
 is a finite whole, made up of finite parts; each part is 
 imperfect, the whole incomplete; the finite has no Infinite 
 to depend on as its Ground and Cause; there is no plan 
 in the universe or any part thereof. 
 
 Now see the subjective Effect of this Theory. By sub¬ 
 jective, I mean the effect it produces on the sentiments 
 and opinions within me. 
 
 I. Look at it first as a Theory of the World of Matter. 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 7 
 
 In respect to the Origin of matter, both theist and 
 atheist labour under the same difficulty : neither knows 
 anything about that. I know men, chiefly theologians, 
 pretend to understand all about the creation of matter 
 originally; and to hear them talk, you would suppose it 
 was as easy to comprehend how “ God made a world out 
 of nothing,'” as it is to understand how a tailor makes a 
 coat out of broadcloth or velvet. But if a man looks 
 with a philosophical eye he sees this is an extraordinarily 
 difficult thing. The philosophical theist admits the 
 existence of the universe, and the atheist does the same; 
 but in the present state of our knowledge neither atheist 
 nor theist knows the mode of origination. You may go 
 back a good way and study the formation of an egg, a 
 fish, seed, tree, or rock, or the solar system, after the 
 fashion of La Place; but the manner of originating 
 matter, out of which the egg, fish, seed, tree, rock, and 
 solar system are made, is just as far off as ever; and it 
 seems to be beyond the reach of the faculties of man. I 
 will not say that it is so, only in the present stage of 
 mam’s development and scientific acquirements, it seems 
 so. The origin of Body—of any specific form of matter—• 
 : may be made out, but the origin of Matter, the primitive, 
 universal substance whence body comes, still eludes our 
 search. I know that ecclesiastical theists often call the 
 philosophical atheist very hard names because he denies 
 that we can understand this process at present; the charge 
 is gratuitous. 
 
 But the real speculative atheist must declare that 
 matter, the general substance whereof body is made, is 
 eternal, but without thought or will; and the specific 
 forms of existence—of egg, fish, seed, tree, rock, and 
 solar system, all came with no forethought preceding 
 them; came “ by chance ; ” that is to say, by the “ for¬ 
 tuitous concourse of atoms ” which has no thought or 
 will, and that they indicate no mind, no plan, no purpose, 
 no providence. That is the atheistic theory of the uni¬ 
 verse ; compare it with facts. 
 
 See how this scheme works on a great scale in the 
 material world. The solar system has a sun and numerous 
 planets; they are all distributed in a certain ratio of 
 distance; they move round the sun with a certain velocity, 
 
8 
 
 SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 always exactly proportionate to their distance from the 
 sun; this holds good with regard to the nearest and the 
 farthest. They move in paths of the same form; they 
 are ruled by the same laws of motion; they receive and 
 emit light in the same way. The laws, which are the 
 constant modes of planetary operation, when we come to 
 study them, are found to be exceedingly intricate; yet 
 they are uniform, and the same for one planet as for 
 another; the same for a satellite as for a planet. They 
 are perfectly kept, and so uniform in action that if you 
 go back to the time of Thales, five hundred years be¬ 
 fore Christ, you can calculate the eclipse of the moon, 
 and find that it took place exactly as the historians of 
 that day relate; or you may go forward five days, or 
 five years, or five thousand years, and calculate with the 
 same precision. So accurate are these laws, that an 
 astronomer studying the perturbations of a remote planet, 
 the phenomena of its economy not accounted for by the 
 attraction of bodies known to be in existence, conjectures 
 the existence of some other planet which causes the 
 phenomena not accounted for. Nay, by mathematical 
 science he determines its place and size, inferring the fact 
 of a new planet outside of the uttermost ring of the 
 solar system; at a certain minute he turns his telescope 
 to the calculated spot, and, for the first time, the star of 
 Leverrier springs before the eye of conscious man ! 
 
 Now the atheist must declare that all this order of 
 the solar system was brought about by the fortuitous 
 concourse of atoms, and indicates no mind, plan, or pur¬ 
 pose in the universe. This is absurd. A man might as 
 well deny the fact of the law of the solar system, or the 
 existence of the sun, or of himself, as to deny that these 
 facts, thus coordinated, indicate a mind, denote a plan, 
 and serve a purpose calculated beforehand. 
 
 See the same thing on a smaller scale. The compo¬ 
 sition of the air is such that first it helps light and warm 
 the earth; is a swaddling garment to keep in the specific 
 heat of the earth, and prevent it from radiating off into 
 the cold, void spaces of the universe. Next, by its free 
 circulation as wind, it helps cleanse and purify the earth. 
 Then it promotes vegetation; carries water from the 
 tropics to the Norwegian pine, furnishes much of the food 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 9 
 
 of plants, their means of life. Next, it helps animal life, 
 is the vehicle of respiration : all plants which grow, ail 
 things that breathe, continually suck the breasts of 
 heaven. Again, it is a most important instrument for 
 the service of man; through this we communicate by 
 artificial light and artificial sound. Without it all were 
 motionless and dumb ; not a bird could sing or fly, not a 
 cricket creak to his partner at night ; not a man utter a 
 word; and a voiceless ocean would ebb and flow upon a 
 silent shore. The thought-mill would be as idle as the wind¬ 
 mill. Man kindles his fire by the air; it moves his ship, 
 winnows his corn, fans his temples, carries his balloon. 
 
 Now the air is capable of these and a great many 
 other functions in virtue of its peculiar composition—so 
 much nitrogen, so much oxygen. No other combination 
 of elements could ever have accomplished this. Vary 
 the composition, have a little more nitrogen or oxygen, 
 and you alter its powers as a vehicle of radiation, 
 evaporation, vegetation, purification, respiration, com¬ 
 munication, and combustion. The atheist must believe 
 that this composition is not the result of any mind, that 
 it serves no plan and purpose, and came by the fortuitous 
 concourse of matter; no more ; that it is all chance. 
 
 If I should say that this sermon came by the fortuitous 
 concourse of matter, that last Monday I shut up pen, ink, 
 and paper in a drawer, and to-day went and found there 
 a sermon, which had come by the fortuitous concourse of 
 pen, ink, and paper,—-every man would think I was very 
 absurd. And yet I should not commit so great a quantity 
 of absurdity as if I were to say “ the composition of air 
 came by the fortuitous concourse of atoms; ” for it takes 
 a much greater mind to bring together and compose the 
 air which fills a thimble than to produce all the sermons, 
 yea, literature, in the world. 
 
 If the atheist says there is mind in matter which ar¬ 
 ranges the planets, controls their distances, their revo¬ 
 lutions, their constant modes of operation, that this mind 
 in matter arranges the elements in the air so as to per¬ 
 form all the functions which I have named, and many 
 more,—then he is false to his atheism, and becomes a 
 theist; for he no longer denies the Qualities of G od, but 
 only calls them by a different name. 
 
10 
 
 SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 With atheism as the theory of the universe, the world 
 ought to be a jumble of parts with no contexture; for 
 the moment you admit the existence of order in the very 
 least form, a constant mode of operation on the very 
 smallest scale,—why, you must admit the existence of the 
 mind which devised the order and the mode of operation; 
 and if you call the mind Geist, or God, or Nature, or 
 Jehovah, it makes small odds: the question is not about 
 the name, but about the fact. 
 
 Now the world is nowhere a jumble. Things are not 
 “ huddled and lumped together ” in the composition of 
 the eyeball of the emmet, or of the solar system. Every 
 part of the universe is an argument against atheism as a 
 theory thereof. 
 
 II. Look next at atheism as the Theory of Individual 
 Human Life. According to the atheistic scheme there is 
 no Conscious Power which is the Cause of me and of my 
 life, which is the Providence thereof; no Mind which ar¬ 
 ranges the world in reference to me, or me in reference 
 to the world. Does that conclusion satisfy the instinctive 
 desires of human nature, any better than it accounts for 
 the facts of material nature ? 
 
 Look at human life from this point of view. I see but 
 little ways behind, around, or before me ; and yet, in all 
 directions, my power of knowledge is greater than my 
 power of work. I know little of the consequences which 
 will follow from iny action. I invent an alphabet; I or¬ 
 ganize the elements into gunpowder, the printing press, 
 the steam-engine, or men into a representative form of 
 government, with a written constitution. I know very 
 little of the effect which these vast forces will produce in 
 the world of man. I know that the steam-engine will 
 turn my mill, that the printing-press will print my news¬ 
 paper, that gunpowder will explode at the touch of fire; 
 but I do not know the effect which these organizations, 
 newly introduced to the world, are to have on the families, 
 the communities, the churches, the states of mankind, and 
 on the general development of the human race. 
 
 The atheist says there is nothing which knows any 
 better, or which knows any more about it; nothing which 
 uses these inventions as forces for the advancement of 
 any purpose. “ The universe,” says he, “ has no self- 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 11 
 
 conscious mind except the mind of man, and he is only 
 6 darkly wise and meanly great/ Nothing in the world/'’ 
 says onr atheist, “ knows what a day may bring forth. 
 The universe is drifting in the void inane, and knows 
 nothing of its whence, its whither, or its whereabouts. 
 Man is drifting in the universe, and knows little of his 
 whereabouts, nothing of his whence or whither. There 
 is no mind, no providence, no power, which knows any 
 better; nothing which guides and directs man in his 
 drifting, or the universe in the wide weltering waste of 
 time. Nothing is laid up for to-morrow. My life also 
 tends to nothing/'’ 
 
 I am joyful : joy is very well, but nothing comes of it. 
 I am sorrowful, and suffer : this is hard, but it is no part 
 of a plan which is to lead to something further. And 
 when my manhood falls away, and my body dissolves, all 
 that is to lead to nothing better. My baby-teeth fall 
 out, giving way to my man-teeth, but that is all chance, 
 indicating no forethought of a mind which provided for 
 the man before the baby was born ! 
 
 I serve men, and get their hate and scorn: the Sad- 
 ducee grumbles because I tell him of his soul and im¬ 
 mortality; the Pharisee, because I demand that he devour 
 widows^ houses no more, nor for a pretence make long 
 prayers; and both of these hunkers, the hunker Sadducee 
 and the hunker Pharisee, throw stones at me, and put 
 me to death. It all comes to nothing for me;I am a 
 dead body, and not a live man : that is all I get for my 
 virtue ! 
 
 I am a brave man, and my country needs me to repel 
 the Spanish Armada, or to keep imperial Nicholas, or 
 Francis, or papal Pius the Ninth, or the little-hearted 
 President Napoleon, from kidnapping my liberty. I go 
 out to do battle, and I come home scarred all over with 
 heroism, half my limbs hewed off, aching at every pore. 
 Or I die on the spot; I carry no heroism, no manhood 
 with me; I am a heap of dust which other dust will 
 soon cover, but the manhood which once enchanted this 
 dust with valiant life, is put out and quenched for ever,— 
 it is all gone ; it is nothing. My brother in that time of 
 peril was a coward; and when war blew the trumpet and 
 his country called on him, he crept under the oven. When 
 
12 
 
 SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 all is over, and quiet is restored, he comes out with a 
 whole skin, and over my unburied bones he marches into 
 peace and carousing, and says, “ A pretty fool was this 
 man to lay down his life for me and get nothing for it! ” 
 And the atheist says, “ He is right.” 
 
 The patriot soldier gets his wounds and crutch, the 
 martyr his faggot and flame, Jesus his cup of bitterness 
 and cross of death,—and that is all. Dives has his purple 
 and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day, more heed¬ 
 less than the dogs are of the beggar at his gate. Lazarus 
 has his sores and the medical attendance of the hounds 
 in the street, but death ends all. 
 
 The mother, whose self-denial leads her to forget every¬ 
 thing but her feeble, crippled child, has nothing but her 
 transient affection and watching; she dies, and all is 
 ended. Another mother abandons her sickly, pestilential 
 child to die of her neglect, and she lives forty years longer 
 in joyous wantonness and riot; and when she also passes 
 away it is to the same end as the other; only she for her 
 falseness has had forty years of animal joy, and the 
 noble mother for her faithfulness has had nothing* but 
 an instantaneous death. And my atheist says, “ There 
 is no future world to compensate the mother who died 
 for love.” 
 
 My life is a great disappointment, let me suppose ;— 
 and for no fault of mine, but for my excellence, my 
 justice, my philanthropy, for the service I have rendered 
 to mankind. I am poor, and hated, and persecuted. I 
 flee to my atheist for consolation, and I ask, “ What does 
 all this come to ? ” And he says, “ It comes to nothing. 
 Your nobleness will do you no good. You will die, and 
 your self-denial will do mankind no service; for there is 
 no plan or order in all these things; everything comes 
 and goes by the fortuitous concourse of atoms. If you 
 had been a hunker, you might have had money, ease, 
 honour, respectability, and a long life, with the approba¬ 
 tion of your minister. You had better have been so.” 
 
 I lay in the ground one dearest to me; some only 
 daughter—her life but a bud, not a blossom, yet mere 
 bud as it is, the better part of my life. In the agony of 
 my heart I flee to my atheist for comfort; and he cannot 
 give me a drop of water from the tip of his finger, while 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 13 
 
 I am tormented in that unutterable grief. “ A worm/' 
 says he, “has eaten up your rose-bud. Get what comfort 
 you can. This is the last spring day, no leaf will be 
 green again for you.” 
 
 I come myself to die. I have laboured to extend my 
 existence, which every man loves to do ; and so I reached 
 back and sought to find out who my fathers and grand¬ 
 fathers were, and trace out my pedigree. I wished to 
 extend myself collaterally, and reached forth toward 
 Nature, and linked myself with that by science and art, 
 and with man by love. The same desire to extend myself 
 urges me to go forward, instinct with immortality, and 
 join myself again to 'my dear ones, and to mankind, for 
 eternal life. But my atheist stands between me and 
 futurity. “ Death is the end,” says he. “ This is a world 
 without a God; you are a body without a soul; there is a 
 here but no hereafter; an earth without a heaven. Die, 
 and return to your dust! ” 
 
 “ I am a philosopher,” says he, “ I have been up to the 
 sky, and there is no heaven. Look through my telescope : 
 that which you see afar off there is a little star in the 
 nebula of Orioffs belt; so distant that it will take light a 
 thousand million years to come from it to the earth, 
 journeying at the rate of twelve million miles a minute. 
 There is no heaven this side of that; you see all the way 
 through; there is not a speck of heaven. And do you 
 think there is any beyond it ? 
 
 “ Talk about your soul ! I have been into man with 
 my scalpel in my hand, and my microscope, and there is 
 no soul. Man is bones, blood, bowels, and brain. Mind 
 is matter. Do you doubt this ? Here is Arnoldis* per¬ 
 fect map of the brain : there is no soul there; nothing 
 but nerves. 
 
 “ Talk of Providence ! There is no such thing. I have 
 been through the universe, and there is no God. God is 
 a whim of men; Nature is a fortuitous concourse of 
 atoms; man is a fortuitous concourse of atoms; thought 
 is a fortuitous function of matter, a fortuitous result of a 
 fortuitous result, a chance-shot from the great wind-gun 
 of the universe,—which itself is also a chance-shot, from 
 a chance-charge of a chance-gun, accidentally loaded, 
 pointed at random, and fired off by chance. Things 
 
14 
 
 SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 happen; they are not arranged. There is luck and ill-luck; 
 but there is no providence. Die into dust ! True, you 
 sigh for immortality; you long for the dear arms of father 
 and mother, that went to the ground before you, and for 
 the rose-bud daughter prematurely nipped. True, you 
 complain of tears that have left a deep and bitter furrow 
 in your cheek; you complain of virtue not rewarded; of 
 nobleness that felt for the Infinite; of a mighty hunger¬ 
 ing and thirst for everlasting life; a longing and a 
 yearning after God:—All that is nothing. Die, and be 
 still! ” Does not that content you ? Does this theory 
 square with the facts of consciousness ? 
 
 III. Now look at Atheism as a Theory of the Life of 
 Mankind. Man came by chance ; the family by chance ; 
 society by chance; nations by chance; the human race 
 by chance. Man is his own sole guide and guardian. No 
 Mind ever grouped the faculties together and made a 
 cosmic man,—it was all chance. There is no Mind which 
 groups the solitary into families, these into nations, and 
 the nations to a world,—it is all chance. There is no 
 Providence for man, except in human heads; politicians 
 are the only legislators; their statutes the only law— 
 “ There is no Higher Law.” Kings and presidents are the 
 only rulers : there is no great Lather and Mother of all 
 the nations of mankind. There is no Mind that thinks 
 for man, no Conscience to enact eternal laws, no Heart to 
 love me when father and mother forsake me and let me 
 fall; no Will of the universe to marshal the nations in 
 the way of wisdom, justice, and love. History is the 
 fortuitous concourse of events, as Nature of atoms; there 
 is no plan nor purpose in it which is to guide our going 
 out and coming in. True, there is a mighty going, but it 
 goes nowhere. True, there has been a progressive de¬ 
 velopment of man’s body and mind, and the functions 
 thereof; a growth of beauty, wisdom, justice, affection, 
 piety; but it is an accident, and may end to-morrow, and 
 the next day there may be a decay of mankind, a decay 
 of beauty, intellect, justice, affection; science, art, litera¬ 
 ture, civilization, may be all forgot, and the naked savage 
 come and burn up Boston, New York, London, and Paris, 
 and drown the last baby of civilization in the blood of 
 the last mother. You are not sure that any good will 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 ' 15 
 
 come of it; there is no reason to think that any good 
 will come of it. Says Atheism, “Everywhere is instability 
 and insecurity.” 
 
 Look on the aspect of human misery, the outrage, 
 blood, and wrong which the earth groans under. Here 
 is the wife of a drunkard, whose marriage life is a per¬ 
 petual violation. She married for love a man who once 
 loved her; but the Mayor and Alderman of the city in¬ 
 sisted that he should be made a beast. A beast, did I 
 say ? Ye four-footed and creeping things of the earth, 
 I beg your pardon ! Even the swine is sober in his sty. 
 The Mayor and Aldermen of the city made this man a 
 drunkard; and the poor wife watches over him, cleanses 
 his garments, wipes off the foulness of his debauch, and 
 stitches her life into the garments which some wealthy 
 tailor will sell,—giving her for wages the tenth part of 
 his own profit,—and which some dandy will wear—thank¬ 
 ing the “ Gods of dandies ” that he is not like that poor 
 woman, so ill-clad and industrious. She will stitch her 
 life into the garments, working at starvation wages, and 
 yet will pay the fines to keep the street drunkard out of 
 the House of Correction, where the city government hides 
 the bodies of the men it slays. She toils till at length 
 the silver cord of life has got loosed, and the golden 
 bowl begins to break. She goes to my atheist, and asks, 
 “ What comes of all this ? Am I to have any compensa¬ 
 tion for my suffering ? ” And the Atheist says, “ Nothing 
 comes of it; there is no compensation. You are a fool. 
 You had better have got a license from the Mayor and Al¬ 
 dermen to prey on other men's wives about you; and then 
 you might have had wealth and ease and respectability. 
 You ought to drink blood, and not shed your own.” 
 
 “Abel's blood cries out of the ground,” continues our 
 Atheist, “ but there is no ear of justice to hear it, and 
 Cain, red with slaughter, goes off welcomed to the arms 
 of the daughters of Nod; the victims of nobleness rot 
 in their blood; booty and beauty are both for him. The 
 world festers with the wounds of the hero; but there is 
 no cure for them: the hero is a fool,—his wounds prove 
 it. Saint Catherine has her wheel. Saint Andrew his 
 sword, Saint Sebastian his arrows. Saint Lawrence his 
 fire of green wood; Paul has his fastings, his watchings, 
 
16 
 
 SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 his scourge, and his jail, his perils of waters, of robbers, 
 of the city and the wilderness, his perils among false bre¬ 
 thren, and. Jesus his thorny crown, his malefactor's death; 
 Kossuth gets his hard fate, and Francis the Stupid sits 
 on the Hungarian throne; the patriots of France broil in 
 the tropic marshes of Cayenne, and Napoleon, surrounded 
 by cultivated women who make him merchandise of their 
 loveliness, and by able men who make merchandise of 
 their intellect, Napoleon fills his own bosom and the 
 throne of France with his debauchery; Europe is dotted 
 with dungeons,—Austrian, Hungarian, German, French, 
 Italian,—they are crowded with the noblest men of the 
 age, who there do perpetual penance for their self-denial, 
 their wisdom, their justice, their affection for mankind, 
 and their fidelity to God. These die as the fool dieth. 
 There is no hope for any one of them, in a body without 
 a soul, in an earth without a heaven, in a world without a 
 God. Does not that content you ? " 
 
 “ All the Christian world over, Oppression plies its 
 bloody knout; its well-paid metropolitan priest blessing 
 the scourge before it is laid on. The groan of the poor 
 comes up from the bogs of Ireland, and from the rich 
 farms of England, and her crowded manufactories. Men 
 make circumstances in London, which degrade two hun¬ 
 dred thousand people below the cannibals of New Zealand, 
 and starve the Irish into exile, brutality, or death. The 
 sighing of the prisoner breaks out from the jail of the 
 tormentor, who 
 
 -‘ Holds the bo ly boun 1, 
 
 < But knows not what a range the spirit takes.’ 
 
 “ The iron gripe of kings chokes the throat of the 
 people. Every empire is girded at the loins with an iron 
 belt of soldiers, which eats into the nation's flesh. Siberia 
 fattens with Freedom's noble dead, and in America three 
 millions of men drag out a life in chains, bought as cattle, 
 sold as cattle, counted as cattle, only not prayed for in 
 the Christian churches as cattle are ; and the little com¬ 
 missioner who kidnaps at Boston, and the great stealers 
 of men who enact the statutes which make American 
 women into marketable things, are honoured in all the 
 ‘ Christian' churches of the land. Most of ‘ the great 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 17 
 
 men/ all the ‘ citizens of eminent gravity/ all the ‘ un¬ 
 impeachable divines/ are on the side of wrong. Cry out, 
 blood of Abel! there is no ear to hear yon. Victims of 
 nobleness, rot in your blood ! it will enrich the ground. 
 Ye saints,—Catherine, Andrew, Sebastian, Lawrence, Paul, 
 Jesus,—bear your rack and gibbet as best your bodies 
 may ! Kossuth, stoop to Francis the Stupid ! Ye patriots 
 of France, kneel to Napoleon the Little, and be jolly in 
 the Sodom which he makes. Ye that groan in the 
 dungeons of the world, who starve in its fertile soils, who 
 wear chains in free America,—yield to the Jeffries, the 
 Haynaus, the slave-hunters, and the priests ! for there is 
 a body without a soul, an earth without a heaven, a world 
 without a God. Atheism is the Theory of the Universe ; 
 and there is no God, no Cause, no Mind, no Providence.” 
 
 The Atheist looks on the lives of the noble men 
 
 “ "Who in the public breach devoted stood, 
 
 And for their country’s cause were prodigal of blood,’* 
 
 and he says, “ these men were fools ; every man of them 
 might have been as sleek, as comfortable, and as fat as 
 the oilest priest that Mammon consecrates. They were 
 fools, and only fools, and fools continually. To the 
 individual hero there comes nothing but blood and 
 wounds.” 
 
 He looks on the nations that failed in their struggle 
 against a tyranPs chain : Poland fell, and Kosciusko went 
 to London, only “ Peter Pindar ” to welcome the exile ; 
 Greece went down in Turkish night; Italy and Spain 
 must bow them to a tyrant’s whim,—and the Atheist has 
 no hope. The States which fail read no lesson to man¬ 
 kind, and have no return for their unblest toil. He looks 
 on the nations now in their agony and bloody sweat, 
 sitting in darkness and iron; he sees no Angel strengthen¬ 
 ing them. What a picture the world presents : Heroism 
 unrequited, paid with misery, vice on a throne, and noble¬ 
 ness in chains. Want, misery, violence, meet him every¬ 
 where ; and for his comfort he has his creed—a body 
 without a soul, an earth without a heaven, a world without 
 a God! 
 
 The Atheist sends out his Intellect to seek for the 
 controlling mind, which is the Cause of the created, the 
 
 VOL. XT. — Theism , §c. 2 
 
18 
 
 SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 Reason of tlie conceivable, the ground of the true, and 
 the loveliness of things beautiful. His Intellect comes 
 back, and has brought nothing, has found nothing, but 
 the reflection of its own littleness mirrored on the sur¬ 
 faces of things. He saw matter everywhere; he met no 
 causal and providing Mind. 
 
 He sends out his Moral Sense to seek the legislating 
 Conscience which is Justice in what is right, the Ground 
 of Good, and the Altogether Beautiful to the Moral Sense, 
 the Equitable Will which rules the world. But his Moral 
 Sense returns silent, alone, and empty; there is no Equit¬ 
 able Will, no Altogether Beautiful of moral excellence, no 
 Ground of Good, no Conscience which enacts Justice into 
 an unchanging law of right; there is only the finite will 
 of man, often erring and always feeble, man an animated 
 and self-conscious drop of dew in the Sahara of the world, 
 conscious of desire, of will, but of such feebleness that 
 soon he will exhale into thin air, and be no more a drop 
 in all the world,—will evaporate into nothing. Every¬ 
 where is material fate, material chance : spiritual order, 
 spiritual providence,—that is a dream. 
 
 He sends out his Affections on the same quest, seeking 
 his hearths desire. They have grown strong by love of 
 Nature,—the crystal, the plant, and animal; they have 
 been educated by loving man—parent and friend, and 
 wife and child, and all mankind; refined by loving noble 
 men, who attract ingenuous youth as loadstones draw 
 the iron dust. Now his Affections fly forth with trembling 
 wing, and seek the All-perfect Ideal, the object of their 
 love, to stay the hunger of the heart which craves the In¬ 
 finite to feed upon and love. But the affections also come 
 back to the sad man with no return. “ There is nought 
 to love,” say they ; “ nothing save man and the ideals of 
 his heart; they are beautiful, but only bubbles ; his warm 
 breath fills them for a moment; how fair they shine,— 
 they cool, they perish, and are not ! The breath was but 
 a part of the windy cheat which blows along the world,— 
 the bubble breaks, and is nothing. There are only finite 
 things for you to love; only finite things to love you in 
 return.” He presses the frail object of his affection closer 
 and closer to his heart. “ This, at least,” say I, “ is 
 secure, and is a fact—the dear one is a reality, and not a 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 19 
 
 dream.” Still there is a sadness in my eye, whence 
 speaks the unrest and wasting of the heart which longs 
 for the unchangeable lovely. Death comes down to separ¬ 
 ate me from the best beloved. Beauty forsakes the 
 elemental clod, the lip is cold; the heart is still ; the eye 
 —its lovely light all quenched and gone. Where is the 
 mind which once spoke to me in hand and lip; the affec¬ 
 tion which loved me, finding its delight in loving, serving, 
 and in being loved ? It is nothing, all gone—like the rain¬ 
 bow of yesterday, no trace thereof still lingering on the 
 sky. “ But what! ” say I, “ is there nothing for me to 
 love which will not pass away ?” “ No : love gravitation, 
 
 if you like, cohesion, the primary qualities of matter; 
 nought else abides.” I look up, and an ugly Force is 
 there, alien to my mind, foreign to my conscience, and 
 hurtful to my heart, and wantonly strikes down the One I 
 valued more than self, and sought to defend with my own 
 bosom; then I die, I stiffen into rigid deaths So the 
 heathen fable tells that Niobe clung to her children with 
 warding arms, while the envious deities shot child after 
 child, daughters and fair sons, till the twelve were slain, 
 and the mother, all powerless to defend her own, herself 
 became a stone ! 
 
 Last hope of all, as first not less of all, the atheist 
 sends out his Soul, to seek its rest and bring back tidings 
 of great joy. Throughout the vast inane it flies, feeling 
 the darkness with its wings, seeking the Soul of all, which 
 at once is Reason, Conscience, and the Heart of all that is, 
 which will give satisfaction to the various needs of each. 
 But the soul likewise comes back—empty and alone, to 
 say, “There is no God; the universe is a disorder; man 
 is a confusion; there is no Infinite, no Reason, no Con¬ 
 science, no Heart, no Soul of things. There is nought to 
 reverence, to esteem, to worship, to love, to trust in, no¬ 
 thing which in turn loves us, with all its universal force. 
 I am but a worm on the hot sand of the world, seeking to 
 fly—but it is only the instinct of wings I feel; striv¬ 
 ing to walk, but handless and without a foot; essaying 
 then to crawl, so it be only up. But there is not a blade 
 of grass to hold on to and climb up by, not a weed to 
 shelter me in the intolerable heat of life.” 
 
 Thus left alone I look at the ground, and it seems cruel, 
 
20 
 
 SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 —a mother that devours her young. No voice cries 
 thence to comfort me; it is a force, but nothing more. 
 Its history tells of tumult, confusion, and continual 
 change; it prophesies no futurfc peace, tells of no plan in 
 the confusion. I look up to the sky, there looks not back 
 again a kind Providence, to smile upon me with a thou¬ 
 sand starry eyes, and bless me with the sun's ambrosial 
 light. In the storms a vengeful violence, with its light, 
 ning sword, stabs into darkness, seeking for murtherable 
 men. 
 
 There is no Providence, only capricious, senseless Fate. 
 Here is the marble of human nature, the atheist would 
 pile it up into palace or common dwelling; but there is 
 only the fleeting sand to build upon, which the rains wash 
 away, or the winds blow off; nowhere is there eternal 
 Pock to hold his building up. No, he has not daily 
 bread,—nothing to satisfy the hunger of his mind, his 
 conscience, and his heart, the famine of his soul, only the 
 cold, thin atmosphere of fancy. Does he believe in im¬ 
 mortality,—it is an immortality of fear, of doubt, of dread. 
 Experience tells him of the history of mankind, a sad 
 history it seems,—a record of war and want, of oppression 
 and servility. He sees that pride elbows misery into the 
 kennel and is honoured for the merciless act, that tyrants 
 tread the nations underfoot, while some patriot pines to 
 oblivion and death ; he sees no prophecy of better things. 
 How can he in an earth without a heaven, in a soul with¬ 
 out a body, a world without a God ? 
 
 Atheism sits down on the shore of Time; the stream 
 of Human History rolls by, bearing successively, as bub¬ 
 bles on its bosom, the Egyptian civilization, and it passes 
 slowly by with its myriads of millions, and that bubble 
 breaks; the Hebrew, Chaldean, Persian, Grecian, Eoman, 
 Christian civilization, and they pass by as other bubbles, 
 with their many myriads of millions multiplied by myriads 
 of millions. Their sorrows are all ended; they were sor¬ 
 rows for nothing. The tears which furrowed the cheek, 
 the unrequited heroism, the virtue unrewarded,—they 
 have perished, and there is no compensation; because it 
 is a body without a soul, an earth without a heaven, a 
 world without a God. “Does not that content you?" 
 asks our atheist. 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 21 
 
 No man can ever be content with tliat. Few men ever 
 come to it,— 
 
 “ Thanks to the human heart by which we live ! ” 
 
 Human nature stops a great way this side of tliat. 
 
 I am not a cowardly man ; but if I were convinced 
 there was no God, my courage would drop as water, and 
 be no more. I am not an unhopeful man; there are few 
 men who hope so much; I never despair of truth, of jus¬ 
 tice, of love, and piety; I know man will triumph over 
 matter, the people over tyrants, right over wrong, truth over 
 falsehood, love over hate; I always expect defeat to-day, 
 but I am sure of triumph at the last; and with truth on my 
 side, justice on my side, love on my side, I should not 
 fear to stand in a minority of one, against the whole popu¬ 
 lation of this whole globe of lands : I would bow and say 
 to them ,—“I am the stronger; you may glory now, but 
 I shall conquer you at last/'’ Such hope have I for man 
 here and hereafter, that the wickedest of sinners, I trust, 
 God will bring face to face with the best of men, his sins 
 wiped clean off, and together they shall sit down at the 
 table of the Lord, in the Kingdom of God. But take away 
 my consciousness of God, and I have no hope; none for 
 myself, none for you, none for mankind. If no Mind in 
 the universe were greater than Humboldt'’s, no ruler 
 wiser than presidents, and kings, and senates, and con¬ 
 gresses, if there were no appeal from the statutes of men 
 to the Laws of God, from present misery to future"eternal 
 triumph, on earth, or in Heaven,—then I should have no 
 hope. But I know that the universe is insured at the 
 office of the Infinite God, and no particle of matter, no 
 particle of mind shall ever suffer ultimate shipwreck in 
 this vast voyage of mortal and immortal life. 
 
 I am not a sad man. Spite of the experience of life, 
 somewhat bitter, I am a cheerful, and a joyous, and a 
 happy man. But take away my consciousness of God; 
 let me believe there is no Infinite God; no infinite Mind 
 which thought the world into existence, and thinks it into 
 continuance; no infinite Conscience which everlastingly 
 enacts the Eternal Laws of the Universe ; no infinite Affec¬ 
 tion which loves the world; loves Abel and Cain,—loves 
 the drunkards wife and the drunkard; the Mayors and 
 
22 
 
 SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 
 
 Aldermen who made the drunkard; which loves the victim 
 of the tyrant, and loves the tyrant; loves the slave and 
 his master; loves the murdered and the murderer, the 
 fugitive and the kidnapper,—publicly griping his price of 
 blood, the third part of Iscariot's pay, and then secretly 
 taking his anonymous revenge, stealthily calumniating 
 some friend of humanity; convince me that there is no 
 God who watches over the nation, but “ forsaken Israel 
 wanders lone;" that the sad people of Europe, Africa, 
 America, have no guardian,—then I should be sadder 
 than Egyptian night ! My life would be only a shadow 
 of a dimple on the bottom of a little brook,—whirling and 
 passing away; all the joy I have in the daily business of 
 the world, in literature and science and art, in the friend¬ 
 ships and wide philanthropies of the time, would perish 
 at once,—borne down in the rush of waters and lost in 
 their headlong noise. Yes, I should die in uncontrollable 
 anguish and despair. 
 
 A realizing sense of atheism, a realizing sense of the 
 consequences of atheism,—that would separate our nature, 
 and we should give up the ghost; and the elements of 
 the body would go back to the elements of the earth. 
 But—God be thanked !—the foundation of religion is too 
 deep within us. There is a great cry through all creation 
 for the Living God. Thanks to Him, the evidence of God 
 has been ploughed into Nature so deeply, and so deeply 
 woven into the texture of the human soul, that very few 
 men call themselves atheists in this sense. No man ever 
 willingly came to this conclusion : no man; no, not one ! 
 Those men, who have arrived at this conclusion,—we 
 should cast no scorn at them; we should give them our 
 sympathy ; a friendly heart, and the most affectionate and 
 tender treatment of their soul. 
 
 Religion is natural to man. Instinctively we turn to 
 God, reverence Him, and rely on Him. And when Reason 
 becomes powerful, when all the spiritual faculties get en¬ 
 larged, and we know how to see the true, to will the just, 
 to love the beautiful, and to live the holy,—then our idea 
 of God rises higher and higher, as the child's voice 
 changes from the baby's treble pipe to the dignity of 
 manly speech. Then the feeble, provisional ideas of God 
 which were formed at first, pass by us; the true idea of 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 23 
 
 God gets written in onr soill, complete Beauty drives out 
 partial ugliness, and perfect Love casts out all partial 
 fear. 
 
 II. 
 
 OF PRACTICAL ATHEISM, REGARDED AS A 
 
 PRINCIPLE OF ETHICS. 
 
 INCREASE OUR FAITH.-LUKE XVII. 5. 
 
 Last Sunday I said something of Speculative Atheism, 
 that is, of atheism considered as a theory of the universe ; 
 with some of the effects on the feelings, and the views of 
 Nature, and individual and general human life, which 
 come thereof. To-day I ask your attention to a sermon 
 of Practical Atheism; that is to say, of Atheism, con¬ 
 sidered as the Principle of practical Ethics. 
 
 If a man starts with the idea that there is a body and 
 no soul, an earth without a heaven, and a world without 
 a God, that idea needs must become a principle of prac¬ 
 tice, and as such it will have a quite powerful effect on 
 the mam’s active character; it will come at length to be 
 the controlling principle of his life. For as in human 
 nature the religious is the foundation-element of'man, as 
 I showed the other day, so any misarrangement in that 
 quarter presently appears at the end of the hands, and 
 affects the whole life of man. 
 
 Speculative Atheism will not be fully reduced to prac¬ 
 tice all at once, but in the long run it will assuredly pro¬ 
 duce certain peculiar results ; just as certainly as any 
 seed you plant in the ground will bear fruit after its own 
 kind, and not after another kind. You and I are not 
 very consistent, it may be, and we therefore allow some¬ 
 thing to come between our first principle and the conclu¬ 
 sion which would follow from it; but the Human Race is 
 exceeding logical, and carries out every principle into 
 practice, making its earnest thoughts into very serious 
 things: only the idea is not carried out at once, but in 
 
24 
 
 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 long ages of time, and by successive generations of men. 
 Every theological idea, positive or negative, that is firmly 
 believed in by mankind or by nations, will ultimately be 
 carried out by them to its legitimate, practical effect, and 
 will appear in their trade, politics, laws, manners,—in all 
 the active life of mankind. We think that the litany 
 which we repeat in the church is our confession of faith. 
 Often, that reaches very little ways in; but the real con¬ 
 fession of the world’s faith is writ in its trade and politics, 
 in its wars and hospitals, in its armies and school-houses, 
 better than in its “ pious literature.” The history of 
 America is the publication of our real theology, the con¬ 
 fession of our actual creed. Each intentional act comes 
 from a sentiment or idea. It is well to see wdiat our ideas 
 are before the thought becomes a thing. 
 
 Last Sunday I showed that there was a mere formal 
 speculative atheism, which was only a denial of God in 
 terms, or the denial of the actuality of a certain special 
 idea of God, but yet contained an affirmation of the 
 quality of God under another name; while real speculative 
 atheism was the denial of the quality of God under all 
 names, a denial of the actuality of any possible idea of 
 God. And I showed also that there were reputed athe¬ 
 ists, who denied some specific notion of God, because 
 they had a better one; and because they were really 
 more theistic and more religious than the men about 
 them. 
 
 The same distinction is to be made in respect to prac¬ 
 tical atheism. Real practical atheism is the living of 
 speculative atheism as a practice; that is, the living as if 
 there was no God, who is the Mind, Cause, and Pro¬ 
 vidence of the world; and that is living as if a man had 
 no natural obligation to think and speak true, to do right, 
 to feel kind, and to be holy or faithful to himself; living 
 as if there were no soul, no heaven, no God. That is 
 real, practical atheism. 
 
 There is a formal practical atheism, which is merely 
 formal, and is based on formal speculative atheism. As 
 the mere formal speculative atheist denies the name of 
 God, but affirms the quality of God, and ascribes that 
 quality to Nature,—so the mere formal practical atheist 
 denies that man owes any natural absolute obligation to 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 25 
 
 God, to think true, to do right; to feel kind; and to be 
 holy; but he affirms that he owes this natural and abso¬ 
 lute obligation to Nature; either to all Nature; repre¬ 
 sented by the universe; or to partial Nature; represented 
 by mankind; or by the individual man; or some special 
 faculty in man. In this case the atheist really affirms the 
 absolute obligation of man to the quality of God; only he 
 gives that quality of God another name; and is no prac¬ 
 tical atheist at all; though he thinks he is SO; and calls 
 himself by that hard name. For only the semblance of 
 real practical atheism can be built on the semblance of 
 real speculative atheism. If a man confesses that he has 
 a natural and absolute obligation to think true; to do 
 right; to feel kind; and to be holy; it is comparatively of 
 little consequence whether he says that he owes this 
 obligation to Nature or to God; because in such a case 
 he means the same by the word “ Naturethat another 
 man means by the word “ God; ” and the obligation is 
 the same; the consciousness of it is the same; and the duty 
 which comes therefrom will be just the same. 
 
 I dislike to hear Nature called God; or God called 
 Nature. Let each thing have its own name. In due 
 time I will show what evils are like to follow from this 
 confusion of terms; miscalling the finite and the Infinite. 
 Still that confusion is not atheism. 
 
 Real practical atheism; I say; is the carrying out of real 
 speculative atheism into life; living as if there were no 
 natural obligation on man to think true; to do right; to 
 feel kind; and to be holy; no obligation; therefore; to be 
 faithful to himself as a whole; or to any part of himself as 
 a part. 
 
 This real practical atheism is divisible for the present 
 purpose into two forms. 
 
 First; the Undisguised practical Atheism. Here the 
 practical atheist openly and undisguisedly denies the 
 quality of God; denies that he owes any natural obligation 
 to think true; to do right; to feel kind; or to be self-faith¬ 
 ful ; and. on the contrary; affirms speculative atheism as 
 his practical principle and motive of life; and then en¬ 
 deavours to live up to it;—or live down to it. That is 
 one form. 
 
 Second; the other is Disguised practical Atheism. 
 
0 
 
 I 
 
 26 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 Here the practical atheist acts on the idea that he has no 
 natural obligation to think true, to do right, to feel kind, 
 and to be holy; and thus really and in act denies the idea 
 of God; but suppresses the formal denial of God and the 
 affirmation of atheism ; or he even goes so far as to affirm 
 his belief in God, and deny his assumption of atheism as 
 a principle of action. That is the other form. 
 
 Now, in truth, these two men, the undisguised professor 
 of atheism and the disguised practiser thereof, if they 
 were consistent, would act pretty much alike in most 
 cases, and do the same thing; only the undisguised 
 atheist would do it overtly, with no denial of the fact and 
 motive, but with the affirmation of each; and the dis¬ 
 guised atheist would do it covertly, denying both the 
 fact and the motive, thus adding hypocrisy to atheism. 
 The undisguised atheist will be the more manly, because 
 he is more thorough-going in his manhood; and such a 
 person will always command a certain degree of admira¬ 
 tion, because it is manly in the man to say right out 
 what he thinks right in; and if he is going to live after 
 a certain principle, to declare that principle beforehand. 
 There is a consistency of manhood in that, and the very 
 assertion is therefore often a guarantee of the man's 
 honesty. But the disguised atheist will be the more 
 atheistic, because he is really the more thorough-going in 
 his atheism. One is true to his natural character as man, 
 the other to his conventional character as atheist, for as 
 atheism is the negation of Nature, so the negation of 
 itself is a legitimate function of atheism. The reason of 
 this will appear presently. 
 
 I said last Sunday that there never was any complete, 
 real speculative atheism in the world; for complete, real 
 speculative atheism is so abhorrent to human nature, that 
 if a man had a realizing sense thereof and of its specu¬ 
 lative consequences, he must needs die outright. 1 may 
 say the same of complete, real practical atheism. There 
 is no complete and real practical atheism; for I think no¬ 
 body could ever be perfectly consistent with real specu¬ 
 lative atheism, and live as if he felt absolutely no obliga¬ 
 tion to speak true, to do right, to feel kind, and to be 
 holy. That, therefore, is an extreme which man cannot 
 possibly reach. Human nature would give up before it 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 27 
 
 came to such, a conclusion. It is conceivable—but neither 
 actual nor possible. 
 
 But yet there is a great deal of practical conduct 
 which logically rests on this basis, and on no other, and 
 though no man was ever fully false to his nature and 
 fully true to his atheism, yet very many are partially 
 false to their nature and partially true to atheism; and 
 so there is a good deal of practical atheism in the world; 
 much more than there appears of real speculative athe¬ 
 ism ; and though no man is a complete practical atheist, 
 yet there are many with whom practical atheism pre¬ 
 ponderates in their daily life, and turns the balance. I 
 mean to say they live more atheistically than theistically. 
 The man does not clearly say to himself, “ There is no 
 God; ” he only half-says it, and little more than half- 
 acts on that supposition. He does not say out, “ There 
 is no God, and hence no obligation to speak true, act 
 right, feel kind, and be faithful to myself;” because, 
 first, there is some theism left in the man,—I think no¬ 
 body can ever empty himself wholly of the consciousness 
 of God;—or next, because the man is not fully self-con¬ 
 scious of his consciousness, so to say, and does not really 
 and distinctly bring to light the principles which are yet 
 the governing principles in his nature;—or, finally, if he 
 is thus conscious, he does not dare to say it, but yet acts 
 mainly on that supposition. Now there is a great deal of 
 this in the world; very much more than appears at first 
 sight. 
 
 I mentioned the other day that some men whom I 
 knew, calling themselves atheists, were yet excellent 
 men; true, just, loving, and holy men; full of a certain 
 religiousness, eminently faithful to themselves, keeping 
 the integrity of their conscience at great cost of self- 
 denial, and feeling more strongly than the majority of 
 men the absolute obligation they were under to be faith¬ 
 ful to every limb of their body and every faculty of their 
 spirit. These were only formal atheists, not real athe¬ 
 ists. They did not think there was no God; they only 
 thought that they thought so. Some of these men have 
 really a higher idea of the quality of God than the 
 Christians about them; only they do not call it God, 
 but Nature; for the “Nature” of the physical philoso- 
 
28 
 
 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 pher, or the <( Mind ” of the metaphysical philosopher, is 
 sometimes higher in some particulars than the notion 
 of the “ Trinity/’ or the notion of the “ Unity/’ which 
 the general run of Christians have formed. I am bound 
 as a faithful man to confess this. So some of these who 
 are called atheists, and who name themselves so, are in 
 reality more theistic and more religious than the general 
 run of Christians about them. Such men as these do not 
 show the practical characteristics of real atheism, but of 
 the real theism which they have disguised to themselves 
 by the name of atheism. 
 
 Thus one of these in America says, “ It will do very 
 well for Christian Doctors of Divinity and deacons, who 
 believe in an angry God that will damn mankind for ever, 
 to declare there is in the universe no Law higher than the 
 Baltimore Platform and the Compromise Measures of the 
 American Congress. It will do very well for them to 
 declare that an angry God has given politicians authority 
 to make such statutes, and declare them binding on men, 
 and so c suppress ’ and ‘ discountenance all agitation ’ for 
 the welfare of one sixth part of the population of the 
 country. But atheists, who believe in Nature—the ma¬ 
 terial world,—in Mind—the spiritual world,—they must 
 declare that there is a Higher Law; to wit: the Law of 
 Nature, seen everywhere in the ground, and in the sun; 
 and the Law of Mind also, felt everywhere in the con¬ 
 sciousness of Man.” 
 
 It is very plain that this man, though he calls himself 
 an atheist, has really an idea of God, and consequently 
 of man’s obligation to speak true, act right, feel kind, 
 and be holy, much higher than the Christian divine who 
 would send his mother into bondage to keep the Com¬ 
 promise Measures; a much higher idea than the man who 
 would renounce his reason for the sake of his creed, and 
 who would give up his humanity in order to join a church, 
 or to keep the wicked statutes which men make in their 
 parliaments. Here you perceive the man calling himself 
 by that ugly name was only a formal atheist, and had 
 really an idea of God which vastly transcended that of 
 the churches about him. I am bound in justice to say 
 this. 
 
 The actual consequence of atheism as a principle of 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 29 
 
 action is something very different from that. The prac¬ 
 tical atheist, starting from his speculative principle that 
 there is nothing which is the Mind, the Cause, and the 
 Providence of the universe, or of any part thereof; and 
 accordingly that Nature and Man are, respectively, the 
 only mind, cause, and providence of themselves,—he 
 must necessarily believe that man is under no natural 
 and absolute obligation to think true, to do right, to feel 
 kind, and to be holy. He must deny that there is any 
 such obligation to God, because he denies the existence 
 of God, or because he denies the existence of the quality 
 of God, and he must deny that he owes this obligation 
 to himself; for as man is his own mind, cause, provi¬ 
 dence, lawgiver, and director, so every propensity of the 
 man is likewise and equally its own cause, its own mind, 
 its own providence, its own lawgiver and director. Ac¬ 
 cordingly passion is no more amenable to reason and 
 conscience than reason and conscience are amenable to 
 passion. The parts are no more amenable to the whole 
 than the whole to any one of the parts. Man is finite, 
 and there is no Higher Being above man; and so there 
 is no Higher Law above the caprice of any passion or 
 any calculation. The man may will anything that he 
 will, and it shall be his law. For reason there stands 
 the arbitrary caprice of man, the arbitrary caprice of 
 each instinctive desire, or of any calculated act of will, 
 and no more. 
 
 If the atheist admits there is in human consciousness 
 an Idea of Right, he must declare it is not any more 
 binding upon man than the Idea of Wrong. We form an 
 Idea of Absolute Right: “ it is a mere whim/'’ says the 
 atheist; “ there exists no substance in which the Absolute 
 Right can inhere. It is an abstract quality which belongs 
 to no substance. It is a nothing; only it differs from an 
 absolute transcendental nothing in this, that it is a think¬ 
 able nothing; not real,—an actual thing; not possible,— 
 a thing to become actual; yet conceivable,—an actual 
 thought in the mind. You may distribute nothing into 
 various heads, and say there is a pure nothing, which 
 cannot be conceived of at all. You can have no notion 
 of a pure nothing—it is not even thinkable; that is ab¬ 
 solute transcendental negation—a denial of subjective 
 
30 
 
 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 conceivableness, as well as of objective actuality. Then 
 you may say, there is also another form of nothing, which 
 is the thinkable nothing.” According to an atheist, God 
 is a thinkable nothing, and the Idea which men have of 
 God has no more objective actualness to support it than 
 the Idea of Light would have if all material light, all 
 actual, and all possible light, were blotted out of being. 
 Then all the necessary attributes of God fall into the same 
 class—thinkable nothings. So do all the transcendent 
 attributes of man. Truth is a thinkable nothing, Justice 
 a thinkable nothing, and any excellence which surpasses 
 the excellence of Thomas, and Richard, and Henry, or all 
 actual men, is also nothing; only it is a thinkable no¬ 
 thing, not a transcendental nothing. 
 
 This being the case, there is nothing for me to aspire 
 after. Ideal wisdom, justice, love, holiness, each is but a 
 thinkable nothing;—I should not aspire after that, more 
 than I should marshal ghosts into an army to go out and 
 fight a battle; or put in battery a non-existent but yet 
 thinkable cannon, which is no cannon, and good for no¬ 
 thing. And then, all reverence must, of course, be weeded 
 out from the mind of the practical atheist. He can only 
 reverence something that he sees with his eye or feels 
 with his hand, or reverence himself. This faculty of 
 reverence which is born in us,—so delightful as a senti¬ 
 ment, as a principle so strong,—must take one of two 
 forms : that of servility, crouching down before a man; 
 or of self-esteem, strutting proudly in its own conceit. 
 There is no other form possible for it. 
 
 The practical atheist denies God, and of course denies 
 religion in all its parts; absolutely denies all obligation; 
 to him the idea of obligation and of duty must lack 
 actuality. He must deny my obligation to conform to 
 my reason, conscience, affections. -There is no reason 
 therefore why I should speak and think true, do right, 
 feel kind, and be holy, if it is agreeable to me to do other¬ 
 wise. Therefore if I am an atheist, and if atheism be 
 unpopular, my atheism will justify me in denying atheism 
 itself and in affirming theism. So atheism, in this way, 
 is self-destructive; its development is its dissolution. So 
 to deny atheism, under such circumstances, will be more 
 atheistic than to affirm it. The atheist who denies it is 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 31 
 
 false to his manhood; there is no atheistic reason why he 
 should be true to it; and the more he denies it, the more 
 he is faithful to his atheistic opinion. So the expedient 
 must take the place of the true and the right; the agree¬ 
 able must take the place of the beautiful; desire, the place 
 of duty; and I will must take the place of that solemn 
 word, I ought . There can be no ought in the grammar of 
 atheism. 
 
 But as the atheist in denying God denies the soul, and 
 in doing that denies the immortality of man, his range of 
 expediency must be limited to this life; and not only 
 must it be limited to the earthly life of the human race,— 
 which may be eternal for aught we know,—but it must 
 be limited to the life of the particular atheist who thinks 
 it, and even to the humbler faculties and lower wants of 
 his nature; and so the highest thing he can desire must 
 be his own present comfort. That is the highest real 
 thing that he knows. So speculative atheism reduced to 
 practice, must logically lead to complete material selfish¬ 
 ness, and can lead to nothing else. 
 
 But as human nature will not allow complete speculative 
 atheism as a theory of the universe, so it will not any 
 more allow complete practical atheism, or complete self¬ 
 ishness, as a principle of life. There is a margin of 
 oscillation around every man, and we are allowed to 
 vibrate a little from side to side. This margin seems 
 sometimes pretty wide, but complete practical atheism 
 or complete speculative atheism lies a great way beyond 
 the limit of human oscillation. It is a thinkable nothing, 
 —conceivable but not actual, or even possible. Still 
 practical atheism actually tends to that conclusion. 
 
 All this which I have said is general in its application; 
 is universal—it will apply to all forms of life. Now see 
 how this atheism will manifest itself in the practical con¬ 
 duct of men in the various forms of Individual, Domestic, 
 Social, National, and General Human Life. Let me say a 
 word of each of these in its order. 
 
 I. I will speak first of the Individual Life. 
 
 As by the atheistic theory of the universe there is no 
 such thing as moral obligation, no such thing as Duty, no 
 Absolute Bight,—as Man is the highest Mind in the 
 universe, his own Cause, his own Providence, his own 
 
32 
 
 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 Originator, his own Sustained and his own Director,—so 
 he is perfectly free to do exactly as he pleases. Duty 
 will resolve itself into caprice of selfishness. Each man 
 is to concentrate himself particularly upon the desire that 
 is uppermost at the time; for as I am my own end, and 
 to seek my own welfare at all hazards, so each particular 
 propensity in me is its own end, and to seek its own 
 welfare,—that is, its own gratification,—at any or all 
 hazards. 
 
 So in my Period of Passion, the gratification of the 
 passional propensities will be the chief thing which I am 
 to seek. I recognize no Higher Law, in me or out of 
 me; no law to prescribe a rule of conduct for me as a 
 whole, or to prescribe a rule of conduct for any particular 
 part of me,—any special passion. To acknowledge an 
 imperative and extra-human law from without, which has 
 a natural right to claim allegiance from me and to rule 
 me as a whole—that would be to confess a God; not in 
 terms, but in fact. To acknowledge an imperative and 
 extra-passional law within me, to which I owe allegiance 
 and which has a natural right to rule over any one passion, 
 is to acknowledge God in degree; for what has a natural 
 right to rule absolutely over any one particular propensity 
 is God, so far as that propensity is concerned; and as I 
 deny the actuality of the Infinite, and do not acknowledge 
 a God who is the Reason and Conscience of the L T niverse 
 and has the right to rule over me as a whole, no more do 
 I acknowledge that my own personal reason and con¬ 
 science have the right to rule over me or over any special 
 appetite or desire. There is no extra-personal and In¬ 
 finite Norm to prescribe a rule of conduct for me; there 
 is no intra-personal and finite norm to prescribe a rule of 
 conduct for any appetite or passion. So I am to let my 
 passion have its swing in its quest for pleasure. If I 
 have got rid of the great God of the universe, and ac¬ 
 knowledge no absolute obligation to think true, to do 
 right, to feel kind, and to be holy,—it will be ridiculous 
 in me to set up a little God in my own consciousness, and 
 acknowledge the obligation of my members to conform 
 thereto in any one particular. 
 
 So the negation of religion as a whole carries with it 
 the negation of control over any one particular passion. 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 33 
 
 As the universe is a “ fortuitous concourse of atoms,” 
 without anything to rule it, with no mind to direct it, 
 self-originated, self-directed, self-sustained, so my con¬ 
 sciousness must be a fortuitous concourse of passions with 
 no harmony therein; every passion self-originated, self- 
 directed, self-sustained, its own end, and to seek its own 
 gratification wholly regardless of its neighbour, or the 
 whole body. 
 
 Accordingly in the Period of Passion I may give loose 
 to my instinctive appetites. You come to me and say, 
 ec There is a God. You must not break his law.” I deny 
 this. “ At least there is something that is right, and you 
 must do that.” I deny that also ; I say there is no such 
 thing as right. “ At any rate you must control your 
 passions for the good of your whole nature, during a long 
 life.” But, why should I do that ? What right have I to 
 control this or that passion, and debar it of its temporary 
 lust, for the sake of giving the whole man a lasting de¬ 
 light ? The passion has no norm but itself; what right 
 has the whole man to control any part of him, or one part 
 to hold another in check ? or put off pleasure to-day for 
 more pleasure to-morrow? So at this period of life anarchy 
 of passions is the only atheistic self-government. 
 
 In the Period of Ambition—which in New-England is 
 commonly by far the more dangerous of the two, as its 
 perils lead to fortune, and the ruin it brings is deemed 
 “ eminent success ”—I am to let the other selfish pro¬ 
 pensities seek each its own object, and not hinder them. 
 I am covetous : I am not to restrain my avarice by my 
 reason, my conscience, my affections; I am to seek my 
 own gain in all ways, at all hazards, and in derision of 
 reason, of conscience, and of affection. There is no prin¬ 
 ciple to stand between me and the dollar, or the office 
 which I covet. I am to be wholly unscrupulous in my 
 zeal, and in the means I make use of to achieve my end. 
 I have a great love of power, fame, ease; and I am to let 
 each of these desires have its full swing. There is no 
 higher power to prescribe a rule of conduct for my am¬ 
 bition, more than for my passion. Here all must be a 
 fortuitous concourse of ambitions, the anarchy of am¬ 
 bitions is the only atheistic self-government at this period. 
 
 So there is nothing to prevent my life from being the 
 
 VOL. xi.— Theism ; §c. 3 
 
34 
 
 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 mere selfishness of passion in youth, seeking pleasure 
 as its object; or the selfishness of ambition in manhood, 
 seeking profit as its goal; for nothing has any right to 
 stand between me and the object of my ambition, more 
 than between me and the object of my passion. Athe¬ 
 ism must be universal anarchy ! 
 
 Now each of these forms of atheism may assume two 
 modes. One is that of Gross Selfishness, that is, gross 
 sensualism of pleasure in the period of passion, or gross 
 calculation of profit in the period of ambition. It will 
 terminate in the gross voluptuary or the gross hunker. 
 That is one form. It is the rude, coarse, vulgar form. 
 It is the shape in which atheism would manifest itself 
 with the poor, with the uneducated, with the roughest 
 of men. It is the atheism of savagery,—the practical 
 atheism of St Giles* parish in London. 
 
 The other mode is that of Refined Selfishness, that is, 
 refined sensualism of pleasure in the period of passion, 
 or the refined calculation of profit in the period of am¬ 
 bition ; and so here it will terminate in the delicate and 
 subtle voluptuary, or else in the delicate and subtle 
 hunker;—this is the atheism of civilization, the atheism 
 of St James* parish in London. The mode will depend 
 on the temperament and circumstances of the man. 
 And yet you see these two are generically the same ; with 
 unity of idea and unity of purpose, both seek a selfish 
 object, and both come to the same end, only one in the 
 delicate and the other in the gross form. In either case 
 the aim of life is to be the rehabilitation of selfishness ; I 
 mean the enthroning of selfishness as the leading practi¬ 
 cal principle of life. The atheist is to look on every 
 faculty as an instrument of pleasure or profit ; to look on 
 his life as a means of selfishness and no more; to look on 
 himself as a beast of pleasure or a beast of prey. Rehold 
 the man of atheism !—his controlling principle selfishness; 
 his life “poor, and nasty, and short ! ** 
 
 Now man is not selfish by nature. We have self-love 
 enough to hold us together. Self-love, the conservative 
 principle of man, is the natural girdle put about our 
 consciousness to keep us from falling loose, and spread¬ 
 ing, and breaking asunder. In human nature self-love 
 is not too strong. When all the faculties act in har- 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 35 
 
 mony there is no excess of this. But if you deny that 
 faculty which looks to the Infinite, which hungers for 
 the ideal true, the ideal just and lovely and holy, then 
 self-love, conservative of the individual, degenerates into 
 selfishness, invades others, and each man becomes merely 
 selfish. 
 
 This fact implies no defect in the original constitution 
 of Man; for it is a part of the plan of human nature that 
 religion, the consciousness of God, should be the founda¬ 
 tion-element of spiritual consciousness, and so the condi¬ 
 tion of manifestation for all the high faculties put toge¬ 
 ther: and as roses will not bloom without light and 
 warmth, or as ships cannot keep the sea without keel 
 and rudder and a hand upon the helm, no more can the 
 high qualities of humanity come forth without we put in 
 its proper place the foundation-element of man, and let 
 the religious faculty lay its hand upon the helm. The in¬ 
 dividual atheist, if consistent, must practically live in utter 
 selfishness—material selfishness, selfishness bounded by 
 the short span of his own earthly existence. And that is 
 individual ruin. 
 
 II. See next the effect of practical atheism on Domes¬ 
 tic Life, in the Family. The normal basis and bond of 
 union in the family is Mutuality of Love in its various 
 forms : connubial—between man and wife,—parental, 
 affiliative, or kindly between kith and kin,—and friendly 
 love. 
 
 Connubial love in its normal state consists of two fac¬ 
 tors,—passion, seeking the welfare of the lover, and 
 affection, which seeks the welfare of the beloved. In 
 normal connubial love these two, the plastic and the 
 pliant, are coordinated together. Each aims to delight 
 the other more than to enjoy himself, and finds his satis¬ 
 faction less in enjoying than in delighting. Passion is 
 then beautiful and affection is delightful. Self-love is 
 subordinate to the love of another, the special to the 
 universal. The love of the true, the just, the ever-beau- 
 tiful, and the holy, comes in, and prevents even the 
 existence of selfishness. This condition affords an op¬ 
 portunity for developing and enjoying some of the high¬ 
 est qualities of man. Passion is instinctive, and affection 
 also is instinctive at first; but as man developes himself 
 
36 
 
 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 by culture, as tlie human race enlarges in its progressive 
 unfolding, so the affections become larger and larger, 
 more powerful in the individual and the race, and the joy 
 of delighting becomes greater and more. 
 
 But in practical atheism the family must rest on 
 Mutuality of Selfishness, not on mutuality of love. 
 And this must appear in all its forms, in the relation 
 between acquaintances or friends, between kith and 
 kin, between parent and child, between man and 
 wife. Marriage must be only for the selfishness of tran¬ 
 sient pleasure, or the selfishness of permanent profit. 
 The parental and filial relation must be only a relation of 
 selfishness, the parents wanting the child to serve them 
 as a beast of burden or as a toy, and the children want¬ 
 ing the parent to serve them, and valuing father or 
 mother only for what they get therefrom. The relations 
 of kinship, of brother and sister, of uncle and nephew, of 
 aunt and niece; the relation of friendship must also be of 
 selfishness, and no more. Passion must be all lust, and 
 affection die out and give place to selfish calculation. 
 The wife must be the husband’s tool or his toy, and the 
 husband the toy or the tool of the wife. 
 
 Marriage is then possible for the sake only of three 
 things; first, for animal gratification; next, for pecu¬ 
 niary profit; last, for social respectability. It is a union 
 of passions in the one case, of estates in the next, of 
 respectabilities in the last; at any rate it is the conjunc¬ 
 tion of bodies without a soul, of selfishness without self- 
 denial, for a here with no hereafter, and in a world with 
 no God. Behold the family of practical atheists ! Atheism 
 gone to housekeeping ! the housekeeping of atheism, like 
 the individual life thereof, must be what Hobbes said of 
 it ,—“ poor, and nasty, and short! ” Expect no self-com¬ 
 mand here for conscience’ or affection’s sake; no self- 
 denial to-day, for dear and lasting delight to-morrow; 
 no self-sacrifice for another’s joy or another’s growth ; 
 mutuality of selfishness is all; and the stronger selfish¬ 
 ness must carry the day; and that is the ruin of the 
 family. No family life of joy is possible without self- 
 denial on all sides. The wife must deny herself for the 
 husband ; the husband, himself for the wife ; the parent 
 for the child; kith for kin, and friend for friend. The 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 37 
 
 stronger and nearer I fold another to my bosom, the 
 nearer and stronger is the demand on me for self-denial, 
 yea, for self-sacrifice for the sake of the object that my 
 arms enfold. 
 
 Now there is much partial practical atheism which ap¬ 
 pears in this domestic form. The present position of 
 woman is only justified on the ground that there is no 
 God: men do not understand it as yet; one day they 
 surely will. Every marriage which is not based on mu¬ 
 tuality of affection,—where good is to be taken and 
 good is to be given, and man and wife both are to take 
 and both are to give,—is bottomed at last on practical 
 atheism ; only on that. The other day I said it was 
 impossible for a man to be a complete speculative atheist. 
 It is impossible for him to be a complete practical atheist. 
 But grant that there was a complete practical atheistic 
 man, and a complete practical atheistic woman;—would 
 marriage be possible between the two ? By no means ! 
 Not at all! Juxtaposition of bodies is all that would 
 take place. Selfishness is never a bond of real wedlock. 
 
 Philosophers in the last century, in France, thought 
 that the Spider had not yet developed all its economy, 
 but might be used for nice purposes of fabric and manu¬ 
 facture amongst men. They thought they could get the 
 filament of a web finer than that of the silk-worm's weav¬ 
 ing, out from the spider's mouth. The spider is not 
 gregarious. The philosophers gathered together an in¬ 
 numerable host of the insects and shut them up in one 
 room, and left them to their weaving, feeding them with 
 flies and other food which the spider's appetite longed 
 for. After a few days there was only a single spider left. 
 They fought with each other, and slew one another, till 
 the king-spider was the only one left, and selfishness had 
 eat itself up. 
 
 III. See how practical atheism will appear in a larger 
 form of action,—the Social Form, in the Neighbourhood 
 and Community. 
 
 The normal basis of society is first the gregarious in¬ 
 stinct, which we have in common with sheep and kine. 
 
 Next, comes the social will, which is peculiar to man, 
 and has this superiority over the gregarious instinct,—it 
 is to join men together in such a way that the individu- 
 
38 
 
 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 ality of eacli shall be preserved, while the sociality of all 
 is made sure of. That cannot take place with the ani¬ 
 mals ; and for this reason,—because they are not persons, 
 and free spiritual individuality does not seem of so much 
 value among sheep and kine as amongst men. Each par¬ 
 ticular Ox may be only “ so much of the ox-kind; ” this 
 Bison only so much of the bison-kind, and that Buffalo so 
 much of the buffalo-kind; and the individuality of either 
 is of no great value for the development of the ox or the 
 ox-kind. But when you come to man, Thomas is one 
 man, and Oliver is another, and Jason is a third; and it 
 is just as necessary to preserve the free spiritual individu¬ 
 ality of each one of these as the individuality of the whole 
 human race. Therefore this social will must so control 
 the gregarious instinct that the individual shall be kept 
 whole while sociality is made sure of. 
 
 Then there is a third thing; namely, the religious as¬ 
 piration, which desires the absolutely true, just, and 
 lovely; and this desire can only be brought out in full 
 action in the company or society of men. 
 
 Accordingly in a normal society there will be, first, in¬ 
 dividual self-love, seeking to develope and enjoy itself: 
 then the social affection, seeking to delight and develope 
 others about us; and these two may be so co-ordinated 
 that the individual is kept in society, and the mass also 
 is developed and blessed by the concurrent desire to en¬ 
 joy and to delight : then there will also be the religious 
 love of God, the ideal True, Just, Loving, and Holy, in¬ 
 volving as it does the religious love of men. In short, 
 that will be a society shaped by the Golden Buie. 
 
 But the society of atheism must be a mutuality of 
 selfishness; a society of bodies without souls ; ruled by 
 selfishness, not conscious affection ; for an earth without 
 a heaven, in a world without a God; and in a world, too, 
 without actual reverence, which comes instinctively into 
 every person above the rank of the idiot;—for with 
 atheists reverence must take either the outward form of 
 servility and baseness, or the inward form of gross self¬ 
 esteem. So this must be a short-sighted selfishness, 
 which lays out for to-day, but never lays up- for to¬ 
 morrow. 
 
 Each conjunction of selfishness must needs be a battle. 
 
PRACTICAL atheism. 
 
 39 
 
 The individual is a warfare of contending passions, Inst 
 striving against acquisitiveness, and ambition against 
 amativeness. The family must be a warfare of men and 
 women striving for mastery. Society must be a warfare 
 of great and little, of cunning and foolish, rich and 
 poor, cultivated and ignorant,—contending for mastery. 
 Amongst all these, the strong passion will carry it in the 
 individual, the strong person in the family, and the strong 
 class in society ; and therefore no peace is at all possible 
 till the strong passion has subdued the weak in the in¬ 
 dividual, the strong man the weak men in the family, and 
 the strong class has got its heel on the throat of the weak 
 class in society. Then there will be unity, and the con¬ 
 quering passion will proclaim peace where it has made a 
 solitude. The social aim will be to rule over others, and 
 make them serve you; to give them the least and get the 
 most from them ; and then he will be thought the most 
 fortunate man and so the most “ respectable ” in the 
 community, and “ honourable ” in the state, who does the 
 least service for mankind, and gets the most pay and the 
 most power from them. Society will be controlled by 
 selfish propensities, not moral ideas, affectional feelings, 
 or religious aspirations for ideal perfection. 
 
 See how this principle will work practically in social 
 affairs. Such is the distribution of faculties amongst 
 men that a few persons always control the mass of men. 
 We may deny this because we are Democrats, but it is a 
 fact which everywhere stares us in the face. It is so with 
 gregarious animals : the strong barnyard-fowl is always 
 cock of the walk, and rules the roost just as he will, only 
 as he has but a small njargin of individual oscillation, 
 little individual caprice, he rules according to the law of 
 his nature, not the caprice of his will. The actual pre¬ 
 ponderance of the few men over the many has hitherto 
 prevailed in every form of state government, whether it 
 be called a despotism, an aristocracy, or a republic. Six 
 hundred men, self-appointed almost, meet together in two 
 Conventions at Baltimore, and select two men, and then 
 say to the people,—“ One of these is to be your Presi¬ 
 dent for four years.” And the twenty millions fling up 
 their caps and say which of the two it shall be; and the 
 majority thinks it has made the President. If the con- 
 
40 
 
 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 ventions had selected two notorious kidnappers, — the 
 Philadelphia kidnapper on one side, and the Boston kid¬ 
 napper on the other,—one of these would as assuredly be 
 President as either of the actual nominees will be. This, 
 I say, is so at present. It is a fact all over the world, in 
 Republics as well as in Despotisms. The political “ de¬ 
 mocrat ** has commonly been also a despot. 
 
 But the principle on which atheistic society must needs 
 be founded will be that of mere private selfishness. So 
 all the rulers must of necessity be tyrants, ruling with 
 cruel and selfish aims. Oppression, which is a Measure in 
 the practice of men, must be also a Principle in the 
 theory of the atheist, the accidental actual of human 
 history will then become the substantial ideal of human 
 nature. The most appropriate nomination in that case 
 would be the nomination of the kidnappers. The capital¬ 
 ist wishes to operate by his money; that is his tool to 
 increase his power of selfish enjoyment. The operative 
 wishes to act by his hand and head ; these are his tools to 
 increase his power of selfish enjoyment. But both must 
 be thoroughly selfish in principle, and so they will be 
 natural and irreconcilable enemies waging a war for 
 mutual extermination. Accordingly the capitalist will 
 aim to get the operatives* work without giving them his 
 money; and the operatives will aim to get the capitalists 
 money without giving him their work; and so there will 
 be a perpetual “ strike ** and warfare between the two, 
 each continually laying at the other with all his might. 
 The harmony of society will be the equilibrium of selfish¬ 
 ness ; and that will be brought about when the strong 
 has crushed down the weak, has got him under his foot 
 and has destroyed him. Harmony will take place when 
 the last spider has eaten up all his coadjutors. The social 
 peace of atheism is solitude. 
 
 In trade the aim will be to accumulate money, — no 
 matter how it is got, by fraud, by lies, by rack-rent on 
 houses, by ruinous usury on land, or less ruinous piracy 
 on the sea. The man will allow nothing to stand be¬ 
 tween him and the dollar he covfcts, no intellectual idea, 
 no moral principle, no affectional feeling, no religious 
 emotion. Mr New-England is greedy for money; Mr 
 South Carolina greedy for slaves. Mr New-England 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 41 
 
 steals men in Africa, or in Massachusetts, and sells them 
 to his brother, Mr South Carolina, getting great pay. 
 You say to both of these. This is very wrong ; it is in¬ 
 human, it is wicked. But the atheists say, “ What do we 
 know about right and wrong ? " “I only know/' says 
 Mr New-England, “it bring me money." “ I only know 
 it brings me slaves," says Mr South Carolina. “ All we 
 want is money and slaves." You can have nothing further 
 to say to these two gentlemen. 
 
 Mr Salem sends cargoes of rum to Africa, and when it 
 gets there dilutes it with half its bulk of water, drugs it 
 to its old intoxicating power, and then sells it to the 
 black man, who is made just as drunk, and a little more 
 poisoned than if he had the genuine article, the only thing 
 to which New-England has characteristically given its 
 name. He sells this to the black man, and sells him also 
 powder and balls to use in capturing his brother men; 
 and when they are caught he “ prudently" leaves some 
 other American to take and transport them to market at 
 Rio, or Cuba, with the sanction of the American govern¬ 
 ment. You say to Mr Salem, This is all wicked. “ What 
 do I care for that ?" says he. “ It brings me very good 
 money, very good honour, the first respectability. You 
 don't think it's righteousness I am trading for, that I 
 baptize negroes w r ith poisoned rum for the sake of their 
 ‘ Salvation !' I leave that matter and the ‘ Justification of 
 Slavery' to the Christian clergy. It is quite enough for 
 the merchant to make slaves; I leave it to the ministers 
 to prove it is right. You think I am aiming at ‘ Heaven,' 
 do you ? You are very young, sir ! " 
 
 But, say you, you are false to your natural obligations 
 to do right, to speak true, to feel kind, and to be holy. 
 “ Obligations of that sort ! " adds he, “ I know no such 
 obligations. This is consciousness without a conscience." 
 At least you must fear the judgment passed against wrong 
 in the next life !—say you, almost driven to your last ap¬ 
 peal. “But I know no next life," says he ; “here is the 
 present life ; I am sure of that." But at least you rever¬ 
 ence God ? “ Not at all," says Mr Salem, “ it is a world 
 
 without a God !" 
 
 If a man starts with such a theory of the universe, and 
 such principles of practice, what can you say to him ? 
 
42 
 
 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 Call on that man for heroism when your country is in 
 danger, and he creeps under the oven. Call on him for 
 charity when the country is starving, and he sells bread 
 for a dollar a pound. You can get nothing from him but 
 selfishness. An atheistic community could not build a 
 free School-house, or an Alms-house, or a Hospital, only 
 a Jail. Behold atheism carried into society ! 
 
 Now, as I said the other day, there is not much ac¬ 
 knowledged speculative atheism,—acknowledged to one’s 
 self,—but there is a great deal of partial practical atheism, 
 which lets houses at rack-rent, to the ruin of the tenant; 
 which lets money at rack-usury, to the ruin of the bor¬ 
 rower ; sells rum to the ruin of the buyer; it deals falsely 
 in honourable goods,—there may be as much baseness in 
 the dealing, as danger in the merchandise,—and then 
 with the profits it builds up great houses, which are 
 palaces for selfishness. I look on them as on the rude 
 hovels of the buccaneers of Jamaica and the Caribbees, 
 who went down to the shore of the Spanish main and 
 murdered the crews of the ships they took, and then 
 carried the ships to port and broke them to pieces to 
 build up their own houses from the fragments. You ask 
 these men to forbear from destroying their brothers. 
 You appeal to their humanity,—and they are true to their 
 practical atheism. You appeal to justice,—they know it 
 not; to respect for conscience,—they have none of it; to 
 their consciousness of God,—they recognize no such thing. 
 Tell these men of some absolute right, of them immortal 
 soul,—it is all a dream. 
 
 Am I speaking mere fictions ? When Boston had kid¬ 
 napped Thomas Sims, and carried him away, two mem¬ 
 bers of a Christian church in this city, both merchants, 
 met accidentally in its chief business street, and talked 
 the matter over. Both disliked the deed; but one thus 
 justified it, and said, “ If we didn’t do this we shouldn’t 
 get any more trade from the South, and I remember we 
 have got to live here” “ So do I,” said the other, “ re¬ 
 member we have got to live hereafter” There were 
 practical atheism and practical religion looking one another 
 in the face. Boston went to the side of practical atheism, 
 as you know, thinking, as her prominent ministers de¬ 
 clared, there was no “ Higher Law.” 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 43 
 
 There is a great deal of social practical atheism which 
 appears under the guise and with the name of religion. 
 This is the most ghastly, the most deadly kind. It is 
 concealed,—a wolf in sheep*s clothing; still a wolf, and 
 his jaws are there under the innocent covering of the 
 lamb. It is Satan transformed “"into an angel of light,” 
 but still the old devil, spite of usurping the angel* s wings. 
 The more consistent atheist will join the church. 
 
 Here is an example of that. A man of property in 
 this city dishonestly failed; dishonestly, and yet legally 
 became a bankrupt; paid his creditors sixpence or a shil¬ 
 ling on the dollar; and secured to himself considerable 
 property, getting a discharge from all his creditors except 
 one. Afterwards he became rich. The poor man who 
 had refused to compound his debt claimed his due. The 
 rich man did not deny that. it was justly due, only de¬ 
 clared it was not legally due. There was no redress. 
 At length our defaulting debtor “ experienced religion,-” 
 as they say;—I call it experiencing theology, and very 
 poor theology besides ; “ experienced religion” at one of 
 the sectarian churches of Boston,—and became what is 
 there called “a, religious man;” and came up before a 
 communion table, and professed to commune with God, 
 and Christ, and Man, through the elements of bread and 
 wine. Our poor creditor goes to him again, and says, 
 “ Now I hope you will pay me, since you have become a 
 ‘’religious man'’ and have joined the church.”^ Quoth 
 the debtor, “ Business is business, and religion is religion. 
 Business is for the week and religion for Sunday”—and 
 paid him not a cent. There was social practical atheism 
 in the guise of religion, all the more consistent in that 
 garb. 
 
 Sometimes practical atheism gets into the pulpit as 
 well as the pews, and then it is tenfold more deadly; for 
 it poisons the wells of society, and next diffuses the con¬ 
 tents abroad as the waters of life. It cries out, “ Ho ! 
 every one that thirsteth, come up here and be comforted 
 in your sins. Slavery is a Christian Institution.” Ask 
 such a man, of that denomination, to preach against any 
 popular wickedness which shakes the steeple over his 
 head, and which jars the great Bible on his pulpit*s lid; 
 ask him to preach against wickedness which turns one 
 
44 
 
 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 half his congregation into voluptuaries—victims of pas¬ 
 sion,—and the other half into hunkers—victims of ambi¬ 
 tion,—and he only cries, “ Save us, Good Lord ! " Tell 
 him of some noble excellence that is going abroad into 
 society, and is ready to be struck down by the wicked¬ 
 ness of the world, and ask him to speak only a word in 
 its favour over the cushions of his pulpit, and he mumbles, 
 “ Miserable Offenders ! Save us. Good Lord/' That 
 is all he can say. 
 
 All these practically deny the Higher Law. I am not 
 speaking of momentary errors. You all know I am far 
 more charitable than most men to all errors of that sort. 
 I know myself how easy it is to do wrong; how many 
 depraved things may be done without any depravity in 
 the human heart. But atheism of this sort, disguised or 
 undisguised,—I cannot express the abhorrence and 
 loathing that I feel for the thing. Offences are one thing, 
 but the theory which makes offences—that is the baser 
 thing. 
 
 Look about you and see how much there is, however, 
 of practical atheism not confessed to itself. The Sad- 
 ducee comes forward and says, “ There is no Angel, nor 
 [Resurrection ; " and men cry out, “ Atheist! " “ Away 
 
 with him ! " The Pharisee devours widows' houses, and 
 then struts into the temple, drops with brassy ring his 
 shekel into the public chest, and stands before the seven 
 golden candlesticks and prays, “ God, I thank thee that I 
 am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, 
 or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I 
 give tithes of all that I possess." Men cry out, “ This is 
 a saint ! a great Christian ! "—and run over the poor 
 widow who is dropping into the alms-box her two mites, 
 all the living that she has, and tread her down. This 
 practical social atheism is the death of all heroism, all 
 manliness, all beauty, all love. 
 
 IV. See this practical atheism in the Political Form, in 
 the Nation. The normal motive of national union is the 
 gregarious instinct and the social will, acting in their 
 larger modes of operation, and joining men by mutuality 
 of interest, and mutuality of love. This is the foundation 
 of all real patriotism. Then the union will be for the 
 sake of the universal good of all, and the particular good 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 45 
 
 of eacli. National institutions, constitutions, and statutes 
 will be tlie result of a national desire for what is useful 
 to-day, and for what is absolutely true, just, lovely, and 
 holy. There will be a co-ordination of the particular de¬ 
 sire of Thomas and Jane, each seeking his own special 
 good in the action of personal self-love; and of the ge¬ 
 neral desire of the nation seeking the united good of all 
 in the joint action of self-love and of benevolence. All of 
 this let me represent by one word. Justice, a symbol alike 
 of the transient and eternal interests of both all and each. 
 All national statutes will come from the conscience of the 
 nation, which aims to make them so as to conform with 
 the conscience of God, as that is shown in the constitu¬ 
 tion of the Universe, in the unchanging laws of Human 
 Nature, which represent the Justice and the Love of God. 
 Then every statute will be a part of the intrinsic law of 
 human nature writ out in human speech, and laid down 
 as a rule of conduct for men. Every such statute will be 
 human and conventional in its form, but yet divine and 
 absolute in its substance, as all true science is the divine 
 and absolute Fact of Nature expressed in human speech. 
 Then the reason for obeying the human statutes will be 
 the natural obligation to speak true, do right, feel kind, 
 and be holy; for so far as the statutes of men represent 
 the natural law of God, obedience is moral, and it is ob¬ 
 ligatory on all to observe them; but beyond this point 
 obedience to those statutes is obligatory on no man, but 
 is immoral, unmanly, and wicked. 
 
 But the politics of practical atheism must be based on 
 selfishness. As selfishness obtains in the individual, 
 establishing a personal anarchy of desires; in the family, 
 establishing a domestic anarchy of its members; in the 
 community, establishing a social anarchy in the classes 
 thereof; so it must prevail in the state, establishing’ a 
 national anarchy in its various parts. Political morality 
 is impossible in the atheistic state; there can be only 
 political economy, which aims to provide merely for the 
 selfishness of men. For by this hypothesis, there is a 
 body without a soul, a here but no hereafter, a world 
 without a God. Men will be consciously held together, 
 in a negative manner, by the mutual and universal re¬ 
 pulsion of selfishness, not at all, positively, by the mutual 
 
46 
 
 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 and universal attraction of Justice. All men will be na¬ 
 tural enemies, joined by mutual hatred, huddled together 
 by Want and Fear. 
 
 Government is a contrivance whereby a few men con¬ 
 trol the rest. In a democracy, the majority of the people 
 determine what great or little man shall perform this 
 function ; or rather they think they determine this, and 
 at least can say who shall not officially attempt this func¬ 
 tion. In a despotism the majority have not that privilege 
 —but the great or little man himself determines who 
 shall control the nation. In the state of practical atheism, 
 in either case, the government must be one of selfishness 
 —the controlling power seeking the most for itself and 
 the least for the people. So the government will be a 
 tyranny, representing only the selfishness of the ruling 
 power. In all cases the appeal must be to Superior 
 Force—to that as the proximate appeal, to that the ulti¬ 
 mate. Now it will be Force of Body, then Force of 
 Cunning. The government may assume various forms,— 
 the controlling power may be a king, a monarchy of 
 selfishness ; a few great families, an aristocracy of selfish¬ 
 ness ; or the majority, a democracy of selfishness : but 
 the substance is still the same,—tyranny and despotism, 
 subjecting the world to monarchic, aristocratic, or demo¬ 
 cratic force; a rule of the strong over the weak, and 
 against the transient and permanent interests of the weak. 
 To the individual whose natural rights are destroyed, it 
 is of small consequence whether the destroyer is single¬ 
 headed, several-headed, or many-lieaded. Political athe¬ 
 ism in one, in few, or in many, is still the same. 
 
 Special maxims and special aims will vary with special 
 forms of government. Is the controlling power a mon¬ 
 arch, he will say, “The king can do no wrong,” and 
 above all things will aim to protect the conventional 
 privilege of kings. Is it an aristocracy of long descent, 
 the maxim will be, “Birth before Merit;” “the nobility 
 cannot err.” They will make all the power of the people 
 serve to rock the cradle for men of famous line, scorning 
 the common mortals “puddle-blood.” Is it a company 
 of capitalists, the maxim will be “ Property, before 
 persons ; ” “ let the State take care of the rich, and they 
 will take care of the people; ” “ money can do no wrong.” 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 47 
 
 They will aim to oppress the poor and make them serv¬ 
 ants, serfs, or slaves. Is it the mob of proletaries, 
 “ Property is theft; ” “the majority can do no wrong; ” 
 “ Minorities have no rights,” will be the maxim, and to 
 plunder the rich the aim. 
 
 Political atheism is the exploitation of the people,—by 
 the selfishness of the king, the nobles, or the majority; 
 all right must yield to might. There is no moral element 
 in the laws—in making, administering, or obeying them; 
 for atheism itself knows no obligation, no duty, no right, 
 only force and desire. All government is a reign of 
 terror. 
 
 In the atheistic state there must be another class. As 
 the formal negation of atheism, and the affirmation of the 
 opposite thereof, is one form of its practical professions, 
 so the Priesthood of Atheism, an atheistic clergy, is 
 philosophically as possible, and historically as real, as the 
 monarchy, the aristocracy, or the democracy of atheism. 
 The clergy will be the ally of the tyrant, the enemy of the 
 oppressed, of the poor, the ignorant, the servant, the serf, 
 the slave. In the name of the Soul which it rejects, of 
 the Hereafter which it denies, of the God whom it derides, 
 the Atheistic Church will declare, “ There is no law above 
 the pleasure of King Monarch, or King Many. Obey or 
 be damned.” So in the atheistic state the atheistic 
 church will be supple to the master, and hate the slave; 
 will cringe to power, and abhor all which appeals, to the 
 Eternal Eight; will love empire, and hate piety. Now it 
 will praise royalty, now nobility, now riches, now num¬ 
 bers, claiming always that the actual power holds by 
 divine right; quoting Scripture to show it. This is the 
 most odious form of practical political atheism,—the ne¬ 
 gation of itself, the affirmation of its opposite; crushing 
 man while it whines out its litany —“ Save us, good Lord, 
 miserable offenders.” 
 
 Hobbes of Malmesbury was right when he said “ Athe¬ 
 ism is the best ally of despotism,” for it denies the reality 
 of Justice; takes Conscience out of human conscious¬ 
 ness, the soul out of the body, Hereafter away from here, 
 and dismisses God from the universe—selfishness the 
 only motive, force the last appeal. That politician was a 
 crafty man who said of religion—“ in politics it makes 
 
48 
 
 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 men mad/’ for it bids them speak ‘true, do right, feel 
 kind, and be holy against the consent of governments 
 when they stand in its way. Alexander at a feast slew 
 Clitus, both drunk with Bacchic wine. One of the flat¬ 
 terers, not drunk but sober, said, “It is all right; there is 
 no law above the king ! ” That was practical political 
 atheism—the sober flatterer exalting a drunken murderer 
 above the eternal God; the exceptional measure of a 
 king, raging with wine and anger, was made a universal 
 principle for all time. 
 
 Here in this nation there is much partial practical 
 atheism in the political form. Look at the corruption, 
 the bribery of eminent men, sometimes detected, ac¬ 
 knowledged, and vindicated: at the conduct of political 
 parties, no one seeking to govern the nation for the 
 joint good of all the citizens, only for the peculiar good 
 of the party in power; at the tyranny of the majority, 
 striking down the obvious right of the lesser number; 
 at three million men made slaves by the people of Ame¬ 
 rica :—what is it all but partial practical atheism ! I am 
 glad, political men boldly declare the speculative prin¬ 
 ciple which lies at the basis of their practical measures 
 and tell the people, “ There is no Natural Law above the 
 statutes which men enact: ” no God above King Mon¬ 
 arch, or King Many. I am glad they “ define their 
 position/'’ all atheistic as it is. Look at the political and 
 clerical defences of the most enormous public wickedness, 
 and you see how deep this practical atheism has gone 
 down into the people, how widely it has spread. But the 
 hope which I have for this nation is built on the Charac¬ 
 ter of God, and on the consciousness of God in the peo¬ 
 ple’s heart. 
 
 Y. You may see how practical atheism must work in 
 the form of General Human Life, the Life of the Human 
 Race taken as a whole. Mankind is a Family of Na¬ 
 tions, amenable to the constitution of the universe, and 
 normally to be ruled by the laws of human nature, by 
 Justice,—by the moral obligation to speak true, to do 
 right, feel kind, and be holy. As the members in the 
 body form a harmonious person; as the individuals in a 
 house form a harmonious family; as the families in 
 society form a harmonious community; as the communi- 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 49 
 
 ties in a nation form a harmonious state; so the nations 
 in the earth are to form a harmonious World, with 
 human unity of action for all, with national variety of 
 action for each state, social variety of action for each 
 community, domestic for each family, and individual for 
 each person. -Justice is to be the rule of conduct for 
 individual, domestic, social, national, and general human 
 conduct. Thus the ideal of human life in these five forms 
 will be attained and made actual. 
 
 But practical atheism makes selfishness, material self¬ 
 ishness, the motive, and material desire the rule of con¬ 
 duct for the nations which make up the world, as for 
 communities which compose the state, or for persons who 
 join in families. So the World of atheism, like its state, 
 society, family, and man, must be only an anarchy of con¬ 
 flicting elements, the strong plundering, enslaving, or 
 killing the weak. The proximate and ultimate appeal 
 will be to force, now force of body, then force of brain. 
 
 Here I will not repeat what I have said before in an¬ 
 other form; but practical atheism will do on the large 
 scale for the world what it did on the small in the state, 
 community, and home. Each nation will be deemed its 
 own exclusive cause, its own sustainer, director, mind, 
 and providence. “ There is no law of God above the 
 nations will,” says the Atheist; “no God above the 
 peoples of the earth. Let us bite and devour one an¬ 
 other.” 
 
 There is much practical atheism of this form in the 
 world. See how Russia oppresses the feebler nations of 
 the East and West. See how this great Anglo-Saxon 
 tribe, with its American and its British head, invades the 
 other feeble nations—the yellow men in Asia and the 
 islands of the sea, the red men in America, and the black 
 men in Africa. It is only practical atheism which in 
 England justifies her treatment of Ireland, of India, 
 China, Africa, and yet other regions of the world : in 
 America it is only by practical atheism that we can vindi¬ 
 cate our treatment of the Mexican and the Spaniard; 
 still more of the red man and the black. Atheism bids 
 the powerful exploiter the weak—now with the sword 
 alone—the heathen way of Rome; now with commerce 
 and the sword—tho Christian way of the Anglo-Saxon. 
 vol. xi.— Theism , §c, 4 
 
50 
 
 PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 I would gladly say much more that burns in my bosom 
 to be spoken, respecting atheism in its Political and 
 General Human Form, atheism making laws, atheism 
 crushing down the people. I would gladly show how 
 this manifests itself in wicked wars. 1 could never look 
 on an army invading another country to do it wrong, 
 without asking, “ Are the men who send the army abroad 
 atheists before men, as well as before God ? ” I would 
 gladly speak of this in its Universal Form,—arraying 
 nation against nation, making the strong tread down the 
 weak. But yonder silent finger warns me that I must 
 not trespass too long. 
 
 Speculative atheism is a thing human nature revolts at. 
 So of speculative atheists, who have a full consciousness 
 of complete atheism, there are at most but few; I think 
 not one. Practical atheism would be just as impossible, 
 if one could be thoroughly conscious thereof. But with¬ 
 out knowing it, there are men who thus act, and move, 
 and live, and have their being, as if there were no God; 
 as if man had no soul; as if there was no special obliga¬ 
 tion to speak true, to do right, to feel kind, and to be 
 holy. But there are many depraved things done v 7 hich 
 indicate no depravity in the man—excesses of instinct not 
 yet understood, errors of passion untamed as yet, nay of 
 ambition, not knowing itself. But there are depraved 
 things which come out of conscious and systematic wicked¬ 
 ness,—the deliberate frauds of theology and trade, and 
 the confessed wrong in domestic, social, national, and 
 general human life. These are the fruits of practical 
 atheism, though the man knows not what tree it is which 
 bears them. 
 
 We see atheism in two forms: One speculative, deny¬ 
 ing that there is any God. I shudder at that. I see men 
 of large culture attempting to found schools of speculative 
 atheism in this land. My bosom burns with pity and 
 love for those men. Others may throw stones at them; 
 I shall throw none. Abuse enough from every hireling 
 clergyman they will have, and every unreasonable sect; 
 they shall have no abuse from my lips; for I see how the 
 creed and the conduct of the churches of our land, and of 
 the Christian world, have helped drive these men to their 
 speculative atheism. Yet I am bound to warn every man 
 
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 
 
 51 
 
 against this; against its beginning, for at first there is 
 something rather attractive in the freedom of thought 
 which it allows. Let us have all that freedom of thought 
 and exercise every faculty of the intellect, and never fear. 
 Little thought stops at Atheism; much thought does not 
 turn out of the way in that direction; or if it do, it comes 
 rounding home, and so returns to God. 
 
 But I see practical atheism far more abundant, and far 
 more dangerous; by deeds, men denying there is any 
 God, any soul, any everlasting life, any obligation to 
 speak true, to do right, to feel kind, and to be holy. 
 This is a sad sight. 
 
 Speculative Atheism sits down, as I said last Sunday, 
 on the shore of Time, and the stream of Human History 
 runs by, bearing the various civilizations,—Egyptian, 
 East Indian, Chaldean, Grecian, Roman; each seems a 
 bubble, though it contains the birth and life, the groans 
 unheard, the virtue unrewarded, the prayers unanswered, 
 of millions of millions of men. Yet the remorseless 
 stream, which comes from no whence, and goes to no 
 whither, swallows all these down—love unrequited, hero¬ 
 ism not paid, virtue unrewarded. 
 
 Practical Atheism does not sit down in this way; it 
 goes out into the storm and tumult of active life, and 
 there it stands, this Cerberus of selfishness, with its three 
 heads;—Lust, which hungers and barks after pleasure ; 
 Ambition, that thirsts for fame and power; and Avarice, 
 which is greedier than all the rest. And this monster of 
 three heads stands there, making havoc of the individual, 
 the family, the community, the church, the nation, and 
 the world. 
 
 But, thanks be to Almighty God ! not only is the re¬ 
 ligious element so strong in us, but the moral and affec- 
 tional are so powerful, the intellectual so mighty, that 
 human nature must stop a great ways this side of com¬ 
 plete Atheism. A body without a soul, a here but no 
 hereafter, a history without a plan, an earth without a 
 heaven, a universe but no God—no man can have a 
 realizing sense of it and live. Only let us be warned in 
 season, and freely develope the moral, affectional, and 
 religious faculties, and have their blest reward. 
 
52 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 III. 
 
 OF THE POPULAR THEOLOGY OF CHRISTEN- 
 DOM, REGARDED AS A THEORY OF THE 
 UNIVERSE. 
 
 TEACHING FOR DOCTRINES THE COMMANDMENTS OF MEN.*— 
 
 MATTHEW XV. 9 . 
 
 On the last two Sundays I spoke of Atheism. First of 
 Atheism as Philosophy,—a theory of the universe; and 
 next of Atheism as Ethics—a principle of practical life. 
 To-day I ask your attention to a sermon of the Popular 
 Theology of Christendom, regarded as Philosophy, a 
 theory of the universe; and next Sunday I hope to speak 
 of it as Ethics, a principle of practice. 
 
 From the beginning of human history there has been a 
 progressive development of all the higher faculties of 
 man; of the religious powers, which connect man with God, 
 as well as of the other faculties, which connect man with 
 the material universe and men with one another. There 
 has been a progress in Piety, in Morality, and in the 
 Theories of these two. Of course, then, there lias been 
 a progress in the visible results of this development of 
 the religious faculties. The progress appears in the rise, 
 decline, and disappearance of various forms of religion. 
 Each of these has been necessary to the welfare of the 
 human race; for at one time it represented the highest 
 religious development of the persons who embraced that 
 form of religion. Sometimes it was a sect; sometimes a 
 nation; sometimes a great assemblage of nations : but in 
 each case the form of religion which the people accepted 
 represented the highest development of the religious 
 faculties of those people at that time. As the science of 
 a nation represents its intellectual development, so the 
 form of religion shows how far men have got on in their 
 piety and morality. But as each form of religion, when 
 it is once established, is a thing which is fixed and does 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 53 
 
 not change, and as the religions faculties are not fixed, 
 but go on with increasing power from age to age, so it 
 happens that men must necessarily outgrow any specific 
 and imperfect form of religion whatever, just as they 
 outgrow each specific and imperfect form of science. 
 Human nature continually transcends the facts of human 
 history, so new schemes of science, new forms of religion, 
 continually crowd off the old. 
 
 This work of making a form of religion, and then out¬ 
 growing it and making a new one, is continually going on. 
 On a small scale it takes place in you and me, who are 
 constantly transcending to-day the form of religion which 
 satisfied us yesterday; it takes place on a large scale in 
 the human race as a whole. Sometimes a man distinctly 
 and suddenly breaks with his form of religion, or no re¬ 
 ligion, and takes a new one. Sometimes a nation does 
 so. This is called a Conversion of the individual, a Re¬ 
 formation of the nation; in either case it is a Revolution 
 in religion. But in general there is nothing sudden or 
 abrupt about this; the whole change takes place silently 
 and slowly, with no crisis of revolution; but insensibly, 
 little by little, the boy^s religion passes away and the 
 man^s religion takes its place. A nation improves in its 
 religion as in its agriculture, its manufactures, its com¬ 
 merce, and its modes of travelling; and the improvement 
 is not by a leap, which Nature abhors, but by a gradual 
 sliding upwards, almost insensible. It has been so with 
 the human race. 
 
 Two thousand years ago our fathers in the heart of 
 Europe were Pagans. Ten or twelve hundred years ago 
 they put off their Paganism and accepted Papal Chris¬ 
 tianity. Three hundred years ago they put off Papal 
 Christianity and accepted Protestant Christianity. . Each 
 of these obvious changes, from Paganism to Papacy, from 
 Papacy to Protestantism, was sudden and violent, a crisis 
 of revolution. But before that crisis came about, a yet 
 greater change had taken place, silently and slowly, the 
 Pagans getting ready for Papalism, and the Catholic 
 getting ready for Protestantism. That was unobserved. 
 First they grew up to Paganism, then to Papal Christiani¬ 
 ty, and then to Protestant Christianity. Shall mankind 
 stop at Paganism? at Papal Christianity? at Protestant 
 
54 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 Christianity? Yon and I may perversely stop, we may 
 stand still,—at least try to do so ; but mankind never 
 stops. The soul of the human race constantly unfolds; 
 it does not pause. Like the stars in their courses, with¬ 
 out haste and without rest, it goes ever on. There is a 
 continual and silent change taking place at this day, and 
 it must for ever take place. It is not possible for the 
 human race to stand still in its religious development: no 
 more than for the matter of the Earth to cease to attract 
 the Moon and be itself attracted thereby. 
 
 The leading nations of the Caucasian race have thus 
 far outgrown, first, the savages' rude Fetichistic worship; 
 then classic Heathenism; then patriarchal Deism; then 
 the Mosaic worship of Jehovah; and now the most en¬ 
 lightened portion thereof have come to what is called 
 “■Christianity.” That is the form of religion which they 
 have reached to-day. Shall we stop with the present 
 form of religion called “ Christianity ? ” Mankind never 
 surrenders to time. There is a progress in what is called 
 Christianity, a continual change of the thing, though the 
 name abides the same. Protestantism is clearly, on the 
 whole, a step in advance of Catholicism—and Protestant¬ 
 ism has advanced very much since the death of Martin 
 Luther. A change is going on at this day within Ca¬ 
 tholicism and Protestantism. 
 
 What is called Christianity embraces three tilings, 
 namely: first Sentiments, next Ideas, and third Actions. 
 It is chiefly of the Ideas that I shall speak to-day. These 
 Ideas united together I shall call the Popular Theology. 
 
 This Popular Theology is not wholly nor in chief the 
 _ work of Jesus of Nazareth, or of his immediate followers ; 
 for, though called by his name, it is no more his pro¬ 
 duction than modern philosophy is the production of 
 Socrates, or modern medicine the production of Galen. 
 What is called Christianity in this sense,—the Popular 
 Theology I mean,—is the result of the religious and 
 philosophical development of mankind up to this day. 
 The development of mankind—in matters pertaining to 
 the sentiment of religion, the idea of religion, the practice 
 of religion—has gone on a great deal more rapidly since 
 the time of Jesus than before or at his time. The change 
 which is now taking place in the religious world—the 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 55 
 
 change in the sentiments of religion, the ideas of religion, 
 and the actions of religion—is greater by far than the 
 change from Judaism or Heathenism to the Christianity 
 of Paul and Tertullian. I mean to say distinctly that 
 between the Ideas of the foremost religious men of this 
 age and the popular theology of the churches, there is a 
 greater chasm, a wider and deeper gulf, than there was 
 between the ideas of Saint Paul or Tertullian and those 
 of the Jews and Pagans who were around them. 
 
 If Jesus of Nazareth were to come back and preach his 
 ideas of theology as he set them forth in Judea, they 
 would not be accepted as Christianity. I think no one 
 of the apostles even would be thought Christian in any 
 church in the world. For, first, there has been a real 
 progress of mankind since their day; and the average 
 preachers have dropped some errors of the apostles, and 
 have got some new truths pertaining to the sentiment, 
 the idea, and the action of religion; and thus there has 
 been a real progress in religious growth. 
 
 But then again there has been a change without any 
 progress, as well as a change with progress ; and the 
 caprice of individuals of to-day has taken the place of the 
 caprice of the individuals who lived ten, twelve, or eighteen 
 hundred years ago—one error taking the place of another. 
 A change of caprice does not always indicate a progress; 
 but the acceptance of new truths—of sentiment, of idea, 
 and of action,—does represent a real progress. 
 
 This progress has been influenced very much by the 
 genius of certain great men, some of them remarkable 
 for feelings of piety, some for ideas of philosophy, some 
 for actions of philanthropy. Jesus of Nazareth has had 
 an immense influence in giving mankind a start in the 
 direction which has been taken since his time. When 
 he declared that love of God and love of Man was the 
 sum of human duty to God and. to man, then he made 
 a statement which can never be gainsaid, nor tran¬ 
 scended, for in that he came upon the eternal substance 
 of religion. That idea can no more fade out of the re¬ 
 ligious consciousness of mankind than the multiplica¬ 
 tion table be dispensed with in Mathematics, the Alpha¬ 
 bet in Literature, or the continent of America fail and 
 be left out of the Geographies which describe the Earth. 
 
56 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth appears to have summed up religion 
 in these two things, namely,—in Piety, the love of God; 
 and Morality, the keeping of the laws of God, and 
 especially in keeping the law which commands us to love 
 our brother as ourselves. But that is at the present day 
 thought to be a very small part of Christianity; and it is 
 thought in all the great sects, Catholic or Protestant, to 
 to be the least important part thereof. 
 
 I do not mean to say that I think Jesus had a com¬ 
 plete and analytic comprehension of all which is included 
 in his own words, nor that he did not demand other 
 things inconsistent therewith, only that he made Love 
 to God and Man the chief thing in his religious teaching. 
 I make a distinction between his theology and his religion. 
 His theology seems to have had many Jewish notions in 
 it, wholly untenable in our day, though commonly ac¬ 
 cepted by wise men in his. It was in his religion that he 
 surpassed his age. 
 
 If any one of the Gospels, or if all of them, represent 
 his thoughts correctly, then his theology contained a 
 considerable mixture of error, which indeed is obvious 
 to any man who will read those records wfithout prejudice. 
 With those works in our hands it would be absurd to 
 maintain that Jesus entertained no theological error, in 
 matters of importance; that he had all theologic truth; 
 or all the theologic truth known to any or all persons of 
 his own time. From the time of Moses to Jesus there 
 w r as a large intellectual and religious development of 
 mankind, a marked progress in the religious sentiments, 
 ideas, atid actions of individual men, and of the leading 
 nations of mankind. From the time of Jesus to our time 
 this progress, both in individuals and in nations, has been 
 yet more rapid. Old errors have been cast away, new 
 truths have been added to the consciousness of mankind. 
 The theology of the most eminent Catholics or Protestants 
 at this day represents the thought of Jesus as it appears in 
 the oldest of the four Gospels, no more than a common 
 plough represents the thought of the man who first broke 
 up ground with oxen. No man is so great as mankind. 
 If the great genius at first is so far before his brothers 
 as to be incomprehensible, by and by they overtake him, 
 pass by him, and go still further on till they become in- 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 57 
 
 comprehensible to the man who stands where the genius 
 once stood. I know it is thought very wicked to say 
 this in its application to the historical development of 
 religion, as it would be thought very foolish to deny it 
 in its application to the historical development of agricul¬ 
 ture, manufacture, or commerce, to any science, to any 
 art. Every great genius for religion will add new facts 
 to the worlds experience of religion, just as much since 
 the death of Jesus as before his time. The road is easier 
 after a saint has trod it, and no saint travels the whole 
 length thereof. 
 
 Look at the Ideas of Christendom, the doctrines. 
 There is one great scheme of doctrines called “ Chris¬ 
 tian Theology/'’ It contains some things held in com¬ 
 mon with every other system of theology that has ever 
 been; they are the generic element of the popular the¬ 
 ology. Then it contains likewise other things peculiar 
 to itself, which do not belong to any other form of reli¬ 
 gion ; these are the specific element of the popular the¬ 
 ology. The first denote the agreement thereof with other 
 schemes of theology, and the next its difference therefrom. 
 
 This great scheme of theology is common to all Chris¬ 
 tendom as a whole, with few individual exceptions. The 
 Christians in general agree in a belief of this common 
 theology, and are thereby distinguished from men of all 
 other modes of religion. The Protestant has departed 
 from the Catholic theology a little, separating therefrom 
 on the question of the authority and functions of the 
 Church—the Protestant affirming the power of the indivi¬ 
 dual as against the power of the great body of Christians. 
 The Unitarian has separated from other Protestants 
 in his doctrine as to the arithmetic of the Godhead, 
 reducing the Deity to one denomination, instead of 
 three which the Trinitarians affirm. The Universalist 
 differs from the rest in his doctrine of the final destina¬ 
 tion of man. But still the great “ body of divinity,”— 
 the mass of doctrines called “ Christian theology,” and 
 “ Christianity,”—has escaped untouched, at least unhurt 
 by Protestants,—Unitarians or Universalists. So Pro¬ 
 testants and Catholics, Unitarians and Trinitarians, Uni¬ 
 versalists and Partialists, agree in the main parts of their 
 theology : they all substantially unite in their idea of God, 
 
58 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 their idea of Man, and their idea of the Relation between 
 God and Man. The root is the same, the trunk the same, 
 the fruit the same in kind, only the branches are unlike 
 in their form, and direction. 
 
 Some of these doctrines, called Christian, were old 
 at the time of Jesus; some were new at that time :— 
 some of these latter were, doubtless, added by Jesus 
 himself; others by his followers;—a great many have 
 been added since that age, taken either from the tran¬ 
 sient caprice of men, or from the permanent truths which 
 man has arrived at. 
 
 Take an example of the doctrines since formed out of 
 the transient caprice of men, and then regarded as 
 Christian. 
 
 First it was declared that the “ immaculate concep¬ 
 tion,^ the supernatural birth of Jesus, should be a doc¬ 
 trine of the Church. This has become fixed in the 
 Church, and there has been no sect for sixteen hundred 
 years at least, venturing to deny it. All sects, even in¬ 
 cluding the Unitarian and Universalist, affirm the super¬ 
 natural birth of Jesus—that he had no human father; 
 or are supposed to affirm it, stoutly enough denouncing 
 such as doubt or deny it. 
 
 Then men went further and affirmed the supernatural 
 birth of Mary, the Mother of Jesus; and, after twelve 
 or thirteen hundred years, that became a doctrine fixed 
 in the Catholic Church, which had two “ immaculate con¬ 
 ceptions.” But at the Reformation the Protestant 
 churches rejected this latter doctrine with all their might, 
 staving it off with both hands, thinking it as great an 
 error to believe the supernatural birth of the mother as 
 to doubt that of the son. 
 
 Men did not stop there; they went further, and pre¬ 
 sently declared the supernatural birth of the Mother of 
 Mary to be an essential doctrine,—and they called that 
 mother Anna. That idea is now in the process of fix¬ 
 ation ; it is getting formulated,—to use a philosophical 
 phrase. That is to say, it has been accepted by a por¬ 
 tion of the Catholic Church; and some of the leaders are 
 now insisting that it shall become a fixed doctrine, a 
 point of Catholic theology which all are to believe, or 
 “ perish everlastingly.” 
 
THE POPULAE THEOLOGY. 
 
 59 
 
 This process of doctrinization by caprice may go 
 on; there is no reason it should stop here. By and by 
 it may be said that the Grandmother, the Great-grand¬ 
 mother, and the Great-great-grandmother were all born 
 supernaturally; and then in addition to Anna, the ficti¬ 
 tious mother of Mary, there may be a Joanna, a Rosanna, 
 a Roxanna, and a Susanna, and each of these declared 
 to have a supernatural birth. It may become a doctrine 
 of some future Church that a man must believe in all the 
 seven cc immaculate conceptions,” or else “ perish ever¬ 
 lastingly.” Why . should Catholics stop with three while 
 the Hindoos have so many ? There is no historical evi¬ 
 dence that Jesus of Nazareth ever believed himself super¬ 
 naturally born or his mother supernaturally born; and 
 Anna, the mother of Mary, is a person as purely fictitious 
 as Joanna, and Rosanna, and Roxanna, and Susanna, 
 whom I have just invented. That is one example of the 
 process of forming a doctrine out of caprice and fixing it 
 in the Church; the popular theology contains many more. 
 The Mohammedan theology equally abounds in doctrines 
 derived from caprice. Nay, all the mythologies of the 
 world are full of such fancies; for human nature is the 
 same in Gentile, Jew, and Christian. 
 
 Some doctrines of Christian theology are Biblical, 
 and were taught by Jesus; some Biblical, and were not 
 taught by him. After the death of Jesus there was a 
 great development of theological doctrines quite foreign 
 to him, as any one may see who will read the book of 
 Revelation,—which has very little religious feeling in it, 
 —or the fourth Gospel, full of religious feeling, each con¬ 
 taining a theology widely unlike that which is taught in 
 the words of Jesus in the former three Gospels; nay, 
 directly antagonistic thereto. But the greater part of 
 what is called Christian theology is post-Biblical, and 
 would be as strange to Paul and Apollos, as much of their 
 teaching would be foreign to the ear of Jesus. Some of 
 its doctrines at his time lay latent in the mind of the 
 world, and have since become patent, so to say; others 
 have been added anew. 
 
 In the popular theology there are comprised some of the 
 greatest truths of religion which man has attained thus far. 
 
 There is, for example, the doctrine of the Existence of 
 
CO 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 God, as Creator and Governor of tlie world, a Being dif¬ 
 ferent in kind from matter, and from man. 
 
 Next, there is the great doctrine of the Immortality of 
 every man, and the certainty of retribution. 
 
 As a third thing, there is the doctrine of the moral 
 Obligation of every man to obey the Law of God. 
 
 As a fourth thing, there is the doctrine concerning the 
 Connection between Man and God, whereby man receives 
 from God inspiration, guidance, and blessing. 
 
 And as a fifth thing, it is affirmed that there is this 
 Connection between man and man,—a duty on the part 
 of one to love another, of all to love each, and of each to 
 love all. 
 
 These are great doctrines, of immense value to man¬ 
 kind. 
 
 I am by no means disposed to underrate science, the 
 grand achievements of human thought, which have brought 
 the stars down to the astronomer's mirror, and have 
 brought up to common knowledge the little things which 
 millions of years ago were laid away and embalmed in the 
 unchanging rock. Man has formulated the sky and 
 knows the whereabouts of the stars; has formulated the 
 rock and knows the habits of the little insects which you 
 find in a piece of slate from Berlin, in the chalk of Dover 
 Cliff, in the sands under our feet, or in the slime that 
 skirts our wharves as each receding tide goes out. All 
 these are grand triumphs of human thought. But these 
 five great doctrines which I have spoken of,—the exist¬ 
 ence of God, the immortality of man, the moral obligation 
 of man to obey the law of God, the connection between 
 man and God, and the connection of love between man 
 and man,—these I think are by far the most important 
 speculative doctrines known to the human intellect. 
 
 But the popular theology has very great defects as a 
 scheme of the universe, and it teaches great errors. Fif¬ 
 teen or sixteen hundred years ago Arnobius and Augus¬ 
 tine, with other great teachers of Christianity, pointed 
 out the follies of Heathenism in the most bitter polemics. 
 It would be just as easy and just as appropriate in bitter 
 sermons, at this day, to point out the errors of the popular 
 theology of the churches. I wish with no bitterness to 
 expose the error. Bitterness is always out of place in 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 61 
 
 philosophy, in theology, in philanthropy. The Heathens 
 before Christ meant to be right, and as a whole did the 
 best they could; and so the Christians after Christ have 
 meant to be right, and have done the best they could as 
 a whole. Aristotle and Augustine seem to me equally 
 honest, and equally mistaken in many matters. Indi¬ 
 viduals have purposely gone wrong, but ninety-nine out 
 of a hundred of the men who have taught theology before 
 Jesus or after him, it seems to me, meant to learn the 
 truth and teach the truth. Let us thank all of these for 
 the good they did, and let us do better if we can; hoping 
 that somebody, by and by, will come and do better than 
 we, and will efface our errors, seeing truths clearly which 
 we have but dimly seen, and the truths dimly which we 
 have not seen at all. 
 
 I say there are great errors in the popular theology of 
 the Christian churches, regarded as a Theory of the Uni¬ 
 verse; great errors in the Idea of God; in the Idea of Man, 
 and next in the Idea of the Relation between the two. 
 
 I. Look at the Idea of God. In the popular theology 
 God is represented as a finite and imperfect God. It is 
 not said so in words; the contrary is often said; never¬ 
 theless it is so. He is actually represented as imperfect 
 in power, imperfect in wisdom, imperfect in justice, in 
 love, and in holiness. It is so represented in facts, or 
 alleged facts, related in the Bible, in the Old and New 
 Testament both. It is so in the Catholic Church and the 
 Protestant Church; with the Unitarian and the Trinita¬ 
 rian, with the Partialist and the Universalist. 
 
 In terms, religious writers very rarely speak of God as 
 malignant, but they continually represent Him so in act. 
 I say they rarely speak of God as malignant; now and 
 then a writer does. Some “ divines 33 have distinctly 
 declared that God was malignant; and not long ago, in a 
 sister city of New-England, a clergyman preached a 
 sermon to his people with this title : “ On the Malevolence 
 of God;If you study the popular theology as a whole, 
 you will find that it regards God as eminently malignant, 
 though it does not say so in plain words. The Tyrian 
 idolaters, I think, called Baal merciful and beneficent, 
 even when they thought he demanded the sacrifice of 
 their children. 
 
62 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 According to tlie popular theology there are three ac¬ 
 knowledged persons in the Godhead. 
 
 First, there is “'God the Father/* the Creator of the 
 universe, and all that is therein; the great Being of the 
 world, made to appear remarkable for three things,—first 
 for great power to will and do; second for great selfish¬ 
 ness ; and third for great destructiveness. In the popular 
 theology God the Father is the grimmest object in the 
 universe; not loving and not lovely. In the New Testa¬ 
 ment, in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, there 
 are some dreadful qualities ascribed to God, which be¬ 
 longed to the Hebrew conception of Jehovah : but a great 
 many exceeding kind and beautiful qualities are also 
 assigned to Him;—witness the Parable of the Prodigal 
 Son ; witness many things put into the mouth of Jesus. 
 The book of Eevelation attributes to the Deity dark and 
 malignant conduct which it is dreadful to think of. But 
 the popular theology in the dreadful qualities assigned to 
 God has gone a great ways beyond the first three Gospels, 
 and the book of Revelation. It has taken the dark things 
 and made them blacker with notions derived from other 
 sources. - 
 
 Then there is “ God the Son/* who is the Father in the 
 flesh, but with more humanity in him, and with very 
 much less selfishness and destructiveness than is at¬ 
 tributed to the Father. Still in the popular theology the 
 love which the Son bears towards man is always limited; 
 first limited to Believers, and next to the Elect. It is no 
 doctrine of the popular theology that Christ actually loves 
 transgressors, and as little that God loves them. 
 
 Then, thirdly, there is “ God the Holy Ghost/* the 
 least important person in the Trinity, who continually 
 “ spreads undivided and operates unspent/* but does not 
 spread far or operate much, and is easily grieved away. 
 The Holy Ghost is not represented as loving wicked men, 
 that is, men who lack conventional faith, or who are 
 deficient in conventional righteousness. No one of these 
 three persons of the Godhead has any love for the souls 
 of the damned. 
 
 All this is acknowledged and writ down in the creeds 
 of Catholic and Protestant, and in this they do not differ. 
 A few heretical Unitarians have differed from the main 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 63 
 
 church on the arithmetic of deity, not on the ethics or 
 psychology thereof. 
 
 It is commonly said there are only three persons in the 
 Deity. But there is really a fourth person in the popular 
 idea of God, in the Christian theology, to wit, the Devil; 
 for the Devil is really the fourth person of the popular 
 Godhead in the Christian churches, only he is not so 
 named and confessed. The belief in the devil is almost 
 universal in Christendom. It is a New Testament doc¬ 
 trine, and an Old Testament doctrine. Catholic and 
 Protestant, Trinitarian and Unitarian, Partialist and Uni- 
 versalist, agree in this. No Christian sect has ever 
 denied his existence; they cannot whilst they believe in 
 the “ Infallibility of the Scriptures/'’ Says a writer of 
 undoubted soundness, who represents the popular the¬ 
 ology of the English and American sects, “ The devil is 
 the implacable enemy of the human race, and especially 
 of believers, whom he desires to devour.” He is repre¬ 
 sented as absolutely evil, without any good in him. When 
 Origen, sixteen hundred years ago, declared that the devil 
 would be saved in the final redemption, if there were a 
 spark of goodness in him, he was declared a heretic by 
 the churches, and all Christendom rung with accusations 
 against him, because he thought the devil might be saved. 
 It was a heresy in Robert Burns when he said he was 
 loth to think of the pit of darkness even for the deviks 
 sake, and wished he might “ take a thought and mend.” 
 
 Well, now, this absolutely evil Devil, if there were such 
 a being, must have come from God, who is the only 
 Creator; and of course, therefore, is as much a part of 
 God^s work and design as the Eternal Son after he was 
 “ eternally begotten,” or the Eternal Holy Ghost after he 
 had “ eternally proceeded; ” and the existence of the 
 devil, therefore, is as much a work of God as the exist¬ 
 ence of the Son or the Holy Ghost; and all the evil of 
 the devil must have originated with God. God, therefore, 
 must have made the devil absolutely evil, because He 
 wanted to make the devil absolutely evil. If the devil 
 were made partially good, with a nature which, under the 
 circumstances he was placed in, would develope into ab¬ 
 solute evil—all of that must be so, because God the Father 
 wished it to be so. The devil must be “ the implacable 
 
64 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 enemy of tlie human race/* with this extraordinary appetite 
 for “ believers/* because God wished him to be so. God 
 therefore is responsible for the devil; and the character 
 of absolute evil, which is in the devil, must have been in 
 God first. 
 
 The power assigned to the devil and the influence over 
 men commonly attributed to him, is much greater, since 
 the creation, than that of all the three other Persons put 
 together. And so the devil is really therefore the most 
 effective person of the popular Godhead, only not so con¬ 
 fessed. There is no mistake in this reasoning, strange as 
 it may seem. It takes all these four Persons to make up 
 and represent the popular theological notion of God. 
 
 Then God as a whole is represented as angry with man¬ 
 kind as a whole. There is, on the one side, an offended 
 God, and on the other an offending human race. God 
 the Father is angry with mankind; God the Son and 
 God the Holy Ghost are both angry with mankind; and 
 the devil, “ the implacable enemy of the human race/* as 
 a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour, 
 “ especially believers.** 
 
 But there are a few w r hom the devil will not be able to 
 devour, who will be saved, whom the Holy Ghost will 
 inspire, whom the Son will ransom and the Father bless. 
 These are only the smallest fraction of mankind, and the 
 devil gets all the rest : so that really, according to the 
 practical teaching of this theology, the devil, the unac¬ 
 knowledged person of the Godhead, is, after all, stronger 
 than God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy 
 Ghost, all united. 
 
 To speak of the deity as a Unit, God is represented as 
 not working by law, that is, by a constant mode of opera¬ 
 tion—in the most important cases,—but by miracle. So 
 God and the universe are not completely at one, but He * 
 acts in it by miracle; that is, by an irregular and capri¬ 
 cious mode of operation, reversing its laws; for example, 
 in the Flood, in the storms and earthquakes of the ma¬ 
 terial world, in the creation of woman, the birth of Jesus, 
 the inspiration of the prophets and apostles. All these 
 are theologically represented as results of the spasmodic 
 action of God, now a spasm of wrath, then of love. This 
 theory does not properly belong to that idea of God— 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 65 
 
 original perhaps with the Hebrews—which makes Him 
 independent of matter and transcendent over it. Much 
 better does it cohere with the notion of the classic deists, 
 with whom God and Matter were both eternal and irre¬ 
 concilable forces, always a little at fend. However, the 
 absurd theory has crept in to the Christian theology, 
 where it appears yet more absurd than in the schemes of 
 Socrates and Aristippus. 
 
 The authors of the popular theology had no conception 
 of a uniformity of force, no conception of a universal law, 
 whereby God works in the world of matter and of spirit 
 -—in short, no conception of the Infinite God. So the¬ 
 ologians make two forms of operations in the universe. 
 One is the “ work of Nature,” by means of law—a con¬ 
 stant mode of the operation of a constant force; the other 
 is the “ work of Grace,” by means of miracles—inconstant 
 modes of the operation of an inconstant force. Wheat 
 grows out of the ground by the law of Nature, and is not 
 thought, in theology, eminently to show the goodness of 
 God; but when Jesus made, as it is said, five loaves feed 
 five thousand men, besides women and children, and leave 
 twelve baskets of broken bread, that is thought a miracle, 
 a revelation of the immense power of God, which shows 
 much more of His goodness than all the wheat that grows 
 from the bosom of the earth, century out and century in, 
 furnishing food for the whole human race ! Newton 
 writes the Principia of the Universe; he writes by the 
 “ light of Nature ” and describes only the “ work of Na¬ 
 ture,” and his masterpiece is considered, theologically, a 
 small thing. St Jude writes- an epistle of twenty-five 
 verses, and it is claimed that he wrote by the “ light of 
 miraculous inspiration; ” his book is a “ work of Grace; ” 
 a miracle; and that poor production of Jude is thought 
 to be incomparably greater than the Principia of Newton, 
 with the Mecanique Celeste of La Place thrown in. “ New¬ 
 ton and La Place,” says this theology, “write by the 
 carnal reason, and their works are fallible; while Jude 
 wrote by miraculous inspiration, and his writings are in¬ 
 fallible.” 
 
 The doctrine concerning Man is no better. Man is 
 represented after this wise; He was so made by God and 
 furnished with such surroundings that as soon as he tried 
 yol. xi. — Theism, §c. 5 
 
C6 
 
 TIIE POPTJLAE TITEOLOGY. 
 
 to go alone he “ fell from a state of innocence into a stato 
 of sin/* and has transmitted “ original sin ** to all his 
 posterity. Men are bora with a sinful nature, and if not 
 “ totally depraved ** they are so nearly so that the frac¬ 
 tion of goodness is infinitesimal and not worth estimating. 
 Sin does not consist in sinning, but in being bora of Adam 
 after the fall; for his offence wrought an attainder in the 
 soul of all his children, for ever. Man of himself, it is 
 said, has no power to find out moral or religious truth, 
 and to secure his own religious or moral welfare. He is 
 naturally wicked and hates God, hates other men, hates 
 truth with his reason, justice with his conscience, love 
 with his affections, holiness with his soul; loves false¬ 
 hood, injustice, hate, and wickedness, all for their own 
 sake, not as means to an end;—hates God the Father, 
 God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, and only loves 
 the Devil. In his flesh there dwells no good thing. 
 The natural desires are sinful, and men are first wicked 
 by nature and next also by will. There is none that 
 doeth good, not one. Men are evil and evil continually; 
 their heart is as prone to wickedness as the sparks to fly 
 upward; they are conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity. 
 If they do something that seems good, even their right¬ 
 eousness is as filthy rags. 
 
 All things which God made work well except human 
 nature; and that worked so badly that it fell as soon 
 as it was put together. God must start anew, and so he 
 destroys all, except eight persons. But, so bad is human 
 nature, the new family behave no better; they must be 
 cast aside; and God discards all excepting the posterity 
 of a single man. But they turn out as bad as the rest, 
 and must be thrown over. No good comes of human 
 reason, and human nature; so at length “ a New Dis¬ 
 pensation** is established. But the new dispensation 
 lias worked scarcely better than the others. The human 
 race does not turn out as God designed, or expected. It 
 is a failure. 
 
 This is taught in every great scheme of theology, Pro¬ 
 test ant or Catholic. 
 
 Fote next the doctrine of the Relation between God 
 and Man. God is the sovereign lord, the king of the 
 human race, and is represented as creating and ruling 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 67 
 
 tie world not for tire worlds good; but for His own good 
 or glory. Jesus calls God “the Father/' —the favour¬ 
 ite name with that great noble heart;—and does not call 
 Him King. In the third Gospel God is the Father who 
 sees His penitent prodigal son a great way off; and goes 
 out to meet him; and falls on his neck and kisses him; 
 and rejoices more over one sinner brought to repentance 
 than over ninety and nine just men. The author of the 
 Epistle ascribed to John; says —“ God is Loved' It is 
 the bravest word in the whole Bible. But by the popular 
 theology God is King; Catholics and Protestants repre¬ 
 sent Him as a despotic king. There are three elements; 
 as I just said; conspicuous in His character. The first is 
 Power;—force of hand; force of head; next; Selfishness; 
 —love of His own glory; and third; Destructiveness. 
 Like other kings He cares little for the welfare of His 
 creatures; though He pretends to care much. Men must 
 fear this King; this is the highest thing you can do. 
 You must pray to God only by attorney. Your prayer 
 will make Him alter His mind and change His purpose; if 
 you employ the right attorney in the right way; for 
 though this King is said to be unchangeable; it is thought 
 He will be moved by the poor petitions you and I put up. 
 Divines talk of “ constraining prayer/'—a prayer that 
 will constrain God to alter His will! The classic myth¬ 
 ology represents the ancient Heathen gods as selfish in 
 their ruling propensity; and the popular theology repre¬ 
 sents God as selfish in His love of power and of glory; and 
 terribly selfish in His wrath. Accordingly; such actions 
 are ascribed to the Deity; in the popular theology; as in 
 almost any country of Christendom would send a man to 
 the gallows. The God of the popular theology is the ex¬ 
 ploit erer of the human race. 
 
 In this theology God is represented as having made 
 and finished a miraculous communication of His will to a 
 small portion of mankind;—the Jews and Christians: 
 that is the “ law of God" written in the Bible; the Old 
 Testament is His first word; and the New Testament is 
 His last word. But in fact the two are in many funda¬ 
 mental teachings exactly opposite; yet men are told to 
 believe them exactly alike. A man must believe every 
 word in the Old and New Testament; and keep every 
 
68 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 command there. Does his reason stand in the way ? 
 —“ down with reason ! ” does his conscience, his affec¬ 
 tion, or his soul stand in the way ?—“ down with them 
 all! ” cries the popular theology, “ down with human 
 nature ! ” The universe is not thought to be the word 
 of God at all, that is “Nature;” and here again the 
 old heathen notion of a discord betwixt God and the 
 world comes up anew. The laws written in this marvel¬ 
 lous body; the laws of the understanding, the conscience, 
 the affections, the soul,—they are not thought to be the 
 word of God; they are not imperative, ultimately binding 
 on men. We are to obey only an arbitrary and capricious 
 command. 
 
 But man has not kept this command. Men could not 
 keep it; God knew they could not and would not keep 
 it when He made them. Of course He wished to make 
 such a law and such men as are thus unfit for one an¬ 
 other—-Nature unlawful, and law unnatural. And when 
 men do not keep the law that He told them to keep, and 
 which He had made it impossible for them to keep, 
 straightway He is angry with them, and hates them, 
 and will destroy them in wrath. So He makes the earth 
 bring forth thorns and thistles for the first offenders, 
 and provides eternal torments for the erring sons of 
 men. 
 
 This theology declares, Every sin is an infinite evil, 
 because it is a violation of the absolute command of God. 
 In a moment of time you can commit an infinite sin, 
 and if you have once transgressed any commandment of 
 God, even in the smallest particular, you are guilty of 
 violating the whole law of God, and are under the infinite 
 wrath of God ; and all you can do, all you can suffer, will 
 not reconcile God to you : He hates you with all His power, 
 all Ilis selfishness, all His destructiveness. But if you do 
 not commit any of these sins, at least you are born of the 
 first sinner, and accordingly were as much hurt by the 
 “fall” as he. But, the theology continues, an atone¬ 
 ment has been made, a sacrifice for the sin of the world. 
 God the Father eternally begot God the Son, and sent 
 him into the world, going voluntarily, and had him cruci¬ 
 fied as a sacrifice for the sin of the world. Thus God 
 the Father is appeased by the sacrifice of God the Son, 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 69 
 
 who has made atonement for men and taken all the sins 
 of men upon himself, and so pacified the infinite wrath of 
 God the Father. 
 
 But he did this only for such as would comply with 
 certain doctrinal and liturgical conditions : that is, they 
 must believe certain doctrines which are repugnant to 
 the whole nature of a good and cultivated man; repug¬ 
 nant to his reason, his conscience, his affections, and his 
 soul. Then they must do certain sacramental deeds, 
 which have no connection with practical life; nothing to 
 do with natural piety and natural morality. The belief 
 of these doctrines and the doing of these deeds is called 
 “ Christianity,” or “ religion.” It is represented as 
 wholly unnatural and all the more valuable for that 
 reason, for the natural heart is at enmity with God. 
 Thus some men are to be “ saved; ” such as comply 
 enjoy eternal happiness, the rest “ perish everlastingly.” 
 
 The theoretic and principal design of this theology is 
 not to make better men,—better fathers, husbands, bro¬ 
 thers, sons ; better mechanics, merchants, farmers,—only 
 to get them “ saved; ” that is, to insure them a good 
 time in the next world. Morality and • its consequent 
 welfare on earth is only incidental to the end of religion. 
 So religion is positively selfish—not for its own sake, but 
 for salvation*s sake. 
 
 But very few come to that salvation; it is only a few 
 that are saved,—look at the list of mankind,—only the 
 Christians and a few of the eminent Hebrews before 
 Christ, no Hebrew since; and of the Christians, none but 
 the Elect in the Protestant Church, and in the Catholic 
 Church only such as die in its communion. Well, to 
 speak approximately, in round numbers, at this day there 
 are a thousand million men on the earth. Two hundred 
 and fifty millions are “ nominal Christians.** To take the 
 Protestant view,—of these nominal Christians perhaps 
 one in forty is what might be called a real Christian; 
 that is, an ecclesiastical Christian, or actual member of a 
 church with the doctrinal and liturgical qualifications just 
 referred to. That gives us six and a quarter millions of 
 real ecclesiastical Christians. According to the theology 
 of the prevailing Protestant sects, none can be saved 
 unless he is of that company. But this number must be 
 
70 
 
 TIIE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 winnowed down still further; for only the Elect are to he 
 saved. What is the ratio of the elect Christians to the 
 non-elect ? I do not find it put down in the theological 
 arithmetic, and have no means of ascertaining. But all 
 the rest are to be damned to everlasting woe ; that is, all 
 men now living who are not Christians, namely, seven 
 hundred and fifty millions ; and of the nominal Christians 
 ninety-seven and a half per cent., or two hundred and 
 forty-three millions and a quarter more ; and of the real 
 Christians I know not how many ; and of men long ago 
 deceased, all the non-elect of the real Christians, all 
 the merely nominal Christians, and all who were not 
 nominal Christians;—so that not more than one out of a 
 hundred thousand men could ever taste of Heaven. 
 
 The Catholic doctrine on this point condemns all who 
 are out of the Catholic Church. The distinction some¬ 
 times made by tender-hearted and pious Catholics, be¬ 
 tween the Body of the Church which is visible, and the 
 Soul of the Church which is invisible, is only an in¬ 
 dividual departure from the doctrinal tradition of the 
 Church itself. 
 
 The first Gospel represents the way to Heaven as nar¬ 
 row and strait, and found by few; and the other, the way 
 to Hell, is represented as broad and abundantly travelled. 
 Says the Methodist hymn, which incarnates in a single 
 verse the teaching of the popular theology, 
 
 u Broad is the road that leads to Death, 
 
 And thousands walk together there ; 
 
 But Wisdom shows a narrow path, 
 
 With here and there a traveller.” 
 
 Those that are saved are not saved by their character ; 
 virtue has no virtue to save your soul. Tell the Catholic 
 priest you expect Heaven for your good works, and your 
 faithfulness to yourself,—he assures you that you are in 
 the bond of iniquity. Tell the Protestant priest the same 
 thing, he is certain you are in the broad way to destruc¬ 
 tion. You must be saved only by the sufferings of 
 Christ as the divine cause ; and by belief in this theology, 
 as the human condition. Piety and Morality, “ natural 
 religion,” is no condition of salvation ; good works are 
 bad things for that. The elect are no better than other 
 men; they are saved by virtue of the Decrees of God, 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 71 
 
 who lias mercy on whom He will have mercy, and 
 rejects whom He will, and takes His elect to heaven by 
 a short path through “ grace/'’ not over the long, flat, 
 dull road of “ works/* It is supposed that man has no 
 right towards God, and that God*s mode of operation is 
 infinite caprice. Laws of Nature are no finality with 
 their Maker ! 
 
 The Holy Ghost is represented as going about seeking 
 to inspire men with the will to be saved. He does not 
 come into assemblies of men of science, who are seeking 
 to learn the .laws of God. It would be deemed impious 
 to speak of the Holy Ghost as attending the meetings 
 of the French Institute, or the Academy of Arts and 
 Sciences in Boston. He does not come into assemblies 
 of men trying to make the world better off, and men 
 better. It would be deemed blasphemy to speak of the 
 Holy Ghost as attending a meeting for the prevention of 
 pauperism or crime; a peace-meeting, a temperance¬ 
 meeting, a meeting against capital punishment, an anti¬ 
 slavery convention, or a Woman’s Bights meeting. If 
 somebody should say of the Convention that met at 
 Syracuse, day before yesterday, to commemorate the 
 rescue of a fugitive slave out of the hands of the kid¬ 
 nappers, that “ the Holy Ghost descended upon it/* 
 what would the clergyman say ? Why, that would be 
 thought a greater atrocity than even I have ever yet com¬ 
 mitted. The Holy Ghost is not represented as inspiring 
 philosophers like Leibnitz, Newton, and Kant, or philan¬ 
 thropists like the reformers of old or modern times. He 
 attends camp-meetings, is present at “ Bevivals/* fre¬ 
 quents tract societies, and the like. You never saw a 
 picture of the Holy Ghost coming down upon a chemist 
 inventing ether, on Columbus thinking America into life, 
 or on Faustus making a printing-press—it is the Devil 
 that is said to have inspired him, and by no means the 
 Holy Ghost. Oh no, the Holy Ghost is not represented 
 as descending on Franklin, flying a kite into a thunder¬ 
 cloud and taking out the lightning with a string, found¬ 
 ing academies, and hospitals, and libraries; but he comes 
 down upon monks, and nuns, and ascetics, praying with 
 their lips; not on common laborious men and women 
 praying with their hands. It would be thought impious 
 
72 
 
 TIIE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 to paint the “ gentle spirit” coming down on a New- 
 England school-house, where an intelligent young woman 
 was teaching children the way they should go; or to 
 paint the “ Heavenly Dove ” fluttering over the head of 
 John Pounds, the British shoemaker, sitting in his nar¬ 
 row shop amid paste-horns and swine’s bristles and bits 
 of leather, 
 
 “ His lapstone over his knee, 
 
 Drawing his quarters and sole together,” 
 
 whilst teaching the little boys and girls to read and write 
 after he had picked them out of the streets. The Holy 
 Ghost of theology has nothing to do with such things at 
 all; nothing to do with schemes for making the world 
 better, or men better. 
 
 Then it is represented that God once inspired men, 
 Hebrews and Christians. Now He inspires no man as of 
 old; He only sends you to a book and the meeting¬ 
 house. It is thought God inspires nobody now. He has 
 spoken His last word, and made His last will and testa¬ 
 ment. There can be no progress in Christianity, none 
 out of it. We have got all the religious truth God will 
 ever give us. The fount of inspiration is clean dried up, 
 and God is so far off that the human soul may wander all 
 its mortal life and never come near Him. All it gets 
 must be at second-hand. 
 
 Such, my friends, is the popular theology as a Theory 
 of the Universe. This is the theology which lies at the 
 basis of all the prevailing sects. I have taken pains not 
 to quote the language of particular sects or particular 
 persons. Let no one be answerable for the common vice. 
 The Universalists have departed widely from this the¬ 
 ology in the doctrine of damnation; the Unitarians have 
 departed less widely in the doctrine of the threefold 
 personality of God. But with the mass of theologians 
 God is still represented as finite and malignant; man 
 the veriest wretch in creation, with a depraved nature; 
 the relation between him and God is represented as a 
 selfish rule on God’s part, and a slavish fear on man’s 
 part;—one man is saved out of a hundred thousand, and 
 ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine are 
 damned to eternal ruin. God exploiters the human race. 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 73 
 
 Man is a worm, and God is represented as a mighty heel 
 to crush him down to hell, not to death, but to writhings 
 without end. 
 
 This being so, see how the world looks from this the¬ 
 ological point in view. 
 
 God is not represented as a friend, but the worst foe 
 to men ; existence is a curse to all but one out of a hun¬ 
 dred thousand; immortality is a curse to ninety-nine 
 thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every hun¬ 
 dred thousand on earth; religion a blessing to only ten 
 in a million, to all the rest a torment on earth, and in hell, 
 the bitterest part of the bitter fire which burns everlast¬ 
 ingly the immortal flesh and quivering soul. 
 
 Is this popular theology a satisfactory Theory of the 
 Universe ? Does it correspond to the facts of material 
 Nature, under all men’s eyes; the facts of human history, 
 the facts of daily observation ? Does this idea of God, of 
 Man, and of their Relation—of God’s providence and 
 man’s destination—does this agree with the natural senti¬ 
 ments of reverence and trust which spring unbidden in 
 the living heart; with the spontaneous intuitions of the 
 True, the Beautiful, the Good, the Holy; with the results 
 of the highest reflective consciousness ? No, it is a 
 theory which does not correspond with facts of material 
 Nature and human history, facts of daily observation; it 
 does not agree with natural sentiments, spontaneous in¬ 
 tuitions, or with voluntary reflection! It is a theory 
 without facts, without reason, a theory whose facts are 
 Fancies, and its reason Caprice. It swings in the air at 
 both ends. So it bids us ignore the facts of the outer 
 universe and deny the powers of the inner world; then 
 where it has made a solitude it proclaims a peace, and 
 calls it the Peace of God. 
 
 The other Sunday I spoke of Speculative Atheism as a 
 Theory of the Universe. I hope I did no injustice to 
 atheism, or the atheist. But which is the worst, to believe 
 that there is no God who is Mind, Cause, and Providence 
 of this universe, that all comes by a fortuitous concurrence 
 of atoms, the world a chance-shot; or to believe there is 
 a God who is Almighty, yet omnipotently malignant, who 
 consciously aims the forces of the universe at the wretched 
 head of his own child ? Which is the worst, to believe 
 
74 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 that I die wholly, absolutely, irrecoverably, and go down 
 to be a brother to the worm of the dust, or to believe 
 that, immortal, I go to curl and stretch and writhe in 
 tortures for ever and ever ? Which is the hardest, to 
 believe that your only child, which fades out of your 
 bosom before the rosebud is fully blown, is no more in all 
 the earth, in all the sky, in all the universe, or that she 
 goes to torment unspeakable, unmitigable, which can 
 have no end when the universe of worlds shall have passed 
 away, and left no wrinkle on the sky that has also grown 
 old and passed out of being ? Which, I ask, is the worst, 
 to believe that there is no ear to hear Abeks blood crying 
 against Cain, or to believe that there is an ear which hears 
 it, One who will damn Cain and millions on millions of 
 men, guilty of no sin but birth—the act of God;—will 
 damn all these for ever and ever, and then will look down 
 with the Eye which never slumbers nor sleeps, and see 
 the innumerable millions of men, women, and babes, all 
 lie there a mass quivering with torment, which He had 
 inflicted of his own free will, and made them for the sake 
 of inflicting it, while Himself feels not a twinge of pity, 
 nor lets fall a single teardrop of love, but rolls all the uni¬ 
 verse of hell as a sweet morsel under His tongue ! Which, 
 I sav, is the worst—to declare with the atheist “ There is 
 no God, all possible ideas thereof lack actuality/'’ or to 
 paint the Cause, the Mind, and Providence of all this world 
 as a hideous Devil—and the universe itself an odious and 
 inexorable hell ? 
 
 Yet the atheist, I suppose, has been faithful to him¬ 
 self ; and the men who have taught these horrid and 
 odious doctrines, I cannot say they have not been faith¬ 
 ful. But I must say that as I hate atheism, so I hate 
 this other doctrine, which represents religion as a tor¬ 
 ment, immortality a curse, and God a fiend. 
 
 Atheism, as I said the other Sunday, sits down on the 
 shore of Time, and sees the stream of Humanity pass by. 
 All the civilizations which have enfolded so many millions 
 of men in their arms, seem but frail and brittle bubbles, 
 passing into nought,—virtues unrequited, tears not wiped 
 away, sufferings unrecompensed, and man without hope. 
 
 Look again. The Popular Theology sits down on the 
 same spot by the shore of Time, and the great river of 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 75 
 
 >» 
 
 Human History sweeps by, fed by a thousand different 
 streams, all mingling their murmurs into one great oceanic 
 harmony of sounds, as it rolls on through Time, passing 
 to Eternity. I go up before Theology and ask, “what 
 is this ? ” “ It is the stream of Human History.” 
 “ Whence does it come ? ” “ It flows from God.” 
 “ Where is He ? ” “ There is God ! Clouds and thick 
 
 darkness are about Him. He is a consuming fire, a 
 jealous God, and the breath of His nostrils and the wrath 
 of His heart are poured out against mankind. In His 
 hand is a two-edged sword, and out from His mouth 
 goes forth fire to wither and destroy.” “ Where does 
 this stream end?” ask I. “Look!” is the answer; 
 “ there is the mouth and terminus of this great stream.” 
 On the right Theology points to Jesus, standing there 
 with benignant face,—yet not all benignant, but cruel 
 also; Theology paints the friend of publicans and sinners 
 with malicious pencil, making to the right a little, thin, 
 narrow outlet, which is to admit a mere scantling of the 
 water into a shallow pool, where it shall gleam for ever. 
 But on the other hand a whole Amazon pours down to 
 perdition the drainage of a continent, into the bottomless 
 pit, which Hell is moved to meet at its coming, and a 
 mighty devil—the vulture of God^s wrath, tormentor and 
 tormented,—sailing on horrid vans, hovers above the 
 whole. And there is the end ! No,—not the end, there 
 is the beginning of the eternal torments of the vast mass 
 of the human family—acquaintance and friend, kith and 
 kin, lover and maid, husband and wife, parent and child. 
 
 Which—Atheism or Theology—gives us the fairest 
 picture ? Atheism, even annihilation of the soul, would 
 be a relief from such a Deity as that; from such an end. 
 
 I said the other day there were atheists in America 
 seeking to spread their notions. But for one who denies 
 a deity there are a hundred ministers who preach this 
 other doctrine of a jealous and an angry God; the ex- 
 ploiterer of the race, who will drive down the majority of 
 men to perdition, and go on His way rejoicing ! The few 
 atheists will do harm with their theory of the universe; 
 but not a hundredth part of the harm which must be done 
 by this view of God, and Man, and the Relation between 
 the two. Atheism is taught in the name of philosophy, 
 
76 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 in the name of Man; this theology is taught in the name 
 of religion, in the name of God. I said I should throw 
 no stones at atheists; that I felt pity for them. I shall 
 throw none at theologians, who teach that religion is a 
 torment, immortality a curse, and God a devil. I pity 
 them; they did not mean to go astray. Mankind is 
 honest. Most of the men who teach the dreadful doc¬ 
 trines of atheism, and of the popular theology, are alike 
 honest. Lucretius and Augustine, d'Holbach and Calvin, 
 I think, were all sincere men, and honest men—and perhaps 
 equally went astray. 
 
 Do men really believe these doctrines which they 
 teach ? The fool hath said in his heart, “ There is no 
 God! ” and I can believe the fool thinks so when he says 
 it. Yes, if the fool should say what the theologian has 
 said,—“ God is a devil, Man is a worm, hell is his ever¬ 
 lasting home; immortality the greatest curse to all but 
 ten men in a million/'’ I should believe the fool thought 
 it. But does any sober man really believe all this of God, 
 and Man, and the Relation between them ? He may say 
 so, but I see not how any man can really believe it, and 
 have a realizing sense of this theology, and still live. 
 Even the men who wrote this odious doctrine,—the 
 Basils and Gregories and Augustines of old time, the 
 Edwardses and Hopkinses of the last generation, and the 
 Emmonses of this day,—they did not believe it, they 
 could not believe it. The atheist thinks that he thinks 
 there is no God, and theologians think that they think 
 religion is a torment, immortality a curse, and God a 
 devil. But, God be thanked. Nature cries out against 
 this odious doctrine, that man is a worm, that religion is 
 a torment, immortality a curse, and God a fiend. 
 
 From behind this dark and thundering cloud of the 
 popular theology, how beautifully comes forth the calm, 
 clear light of natural human religion, revealing to us God 
 as the Infinite Father, as the Infinite Mother of all, per¬ 
 fectly powerful, perfectly wise, perfectly just and loving, 
 and perfectly holy too ! Then how beautiful is the Uni¬ 
 verse ! It is the great Bible of God;—Material Nature 
 is the Old Testament, millions of years old, spangled with 
 truths under our feet, sparkling with glories over our 
 head; and Human Nature is the New Testament from 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 77 
 
 the Infinite God, every day revealing a new page as Time 
 turns over the leaf. Immortality stands waiting to give 
 a recompense for every virtue not rewarded, for every 
 tear not wiped away, for every sorrow unrecompensed, for 
 every prayer, for each pure intention of the heart. And 
 over the whole,—Old Testament and New Testament, 
 Mortality and Immortality,—the Infinite Loving-Kindness 
 of God the Father, comes brooding down as a bird over 
 her nest ; ay, taking us to His own infinite arms and 
 blessing us with Himself. 
 
 Look up at the stars, study the mathematics of the 
 heavens writ in those gorgeous diagrams of fire, where 
 all is law, order, harmony, beauty without end; look 
 down on the ant-hill in the fields some morning in early 
 summer, and study the ethics of the emmets, all law, 
 order, harmony, beauty without end; look round on the 
 cattle, on the birds, on the cold fishes in the stream, the 
 reptiles, insects, and see the mathematics of their struc¬ 
 ture, and the ethics of their lives; do you find any sign 
 that the First Person of the Godhead is malignant and 
 capricious, and the Fourth Person thereof is a devil; that 
 Hate preponderates in the world ? Look back over the 
 whole course of human history; you see war and violence 
 it is true, but the higher powers of man gaining con¬ 
 tinually on the animal appetites at every step, the race 
 getting fairer, wiser, juster, more affectionate, more faith¬ 
 ful unto justice, love, and all their laws; look in you, and 
 study the instinctive emotions of your owil nature, and in 
 some high hour of self-excitement when you are most 
 yourself, ask if there can be such a horrid God as the 
 popular theology so blackly paints, making his human 
 world from such a selfish motive, of such a base material, 
 and for such a purpose,—to rot its fiery immortality in 
 hell? 
 
 Is this dreadful theology to continue ? The days of its 
 foul doctrines are numbered. The natural instincts of 
 man are against it; the facts of history are against it; 
 every advance of science makes this theology appear the 
 more ghastly and odious. It is in a process of dissolution, 
 and must die. The popular theology, 
 
 “ Mouldering with the dull earth’s mouldering sod, 
 
 Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame, 
 
78 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 Lies there exiled from eternal God, 
 
 Lost to her place and name; 
 
 And death and life she hateth equally, 
 
 And nothing sees for her despair, 
 
 But dreadful Time, dreadful Eternity. 
 
 No comfort anywhere; 
 
 Remaining utterly confused with fears, 
 
 And ever worse with growing time, 
 
 And ever unrelieved by dismal tears, 
 
 And all alone in crime 
 Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round 
 With blackness as a solid wail, 
 
 Far off she seems to hear the dully sound 
 Of human footsteps fall; 
 
 As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, 
 
 In doubt and great perplexity, 
 
 A little before moon-rise hears the low 
 Moan of an unknown sea, 
 
 And knows not if it be thunder, or a sound 
 Of stones thrown down, or one deep cry 
 Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, ‘ 1 have found 
 A new land, but I die ! * ” 
 
 IV. 
 
 OF THE POPULAR THEOLOGY OF CHRISTENDOM, 
 REGARDED AS A PRINCIPLE OF ETHICS. 
 
 A CORRUPT TREE BRINGETH FORTH EVIL FRUIT.—MATTHEW 
 
 vii. 19. 
 
 Last Sunday I spoke of tke popular Christian Theology, 
 as a Theory of the Universe. To-day I ask your attention 
 to a sermon of this Theology, regarded as a Principle of 
 Ethics; that is to say, of the practical effects thereof 
 when the Idea shall become a Fact. I am not now to 
 speak of the practical effects of the Christian Religion ; 
 that is to say, of Piety and Morality: I am to speak of 
 something very different; namely, of the Popular The- 
 ology, with its false idea of God, its false idea of Man, and 
 its false idea of the Relation between the two. 
 
 I shall not speak of this theology, with these three 
 false ideas, as a fraud, but as a mistake. The worst 
 doctrines thereof, which make man a worm, religion a 
 
THE TOFULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 79 
 
 curse, immortality a torment, and God a devil, I take it, 
 once represented the honest thought of honest men, or 
 what they thought was their thought. John Calvin was 
 an honest man ; Augustine and St Thomas were honest 
 men ; Edwards and Hopkins and Emmons,—they were 
 all honest men. The greatest may easily be mistaken, 
 especially if they throw away their reason when they 
 start. The Hebrew theology, the Greek and Roman 
 theology, the Mahometan theology,—all these are the 
 productions of honest men, who meant to be right and 
 not wrong. So the errors of alchemy, in the Middle 
 Ages, of astrology,—they also were the mistakes of 
 honest men. 
 
 This theology—very much miscalled Christian—has 
 been made a practical principle of Christendom for many 
 hundred years. It is set up as Religion ; for though re¬ 
 ligion and theology are as different from one another as 
 breathing is different from the theory of breath, or as 
 slumber is different from the philosophy of sleep, yet it is 
 taught that this theology is religion, is Christianity, and 
 that without this there can be no adequate piety and 
 morality, no sufficient belief in God, and no happiness in 
 . the next life. This theology declares, “ There is no 
 stopping betwixt me and blank atheism.” 
 
 Since religion is represented as thus unnatural and 
 unreasonable, there are many who “ sign off"” from con¬ 
 scious religion altogether: they reject it, and will have 
 nothing to do with it. It seems to war with their reason, 
 with their conscience, their affections, their soul: and so 
 far as possible, they reject it. They mean to be true to 
 their noblest faculties in doing so. The popular theology, 
 with its idea of God and Man, and of their Relation, is 
 the philosophy of unreason, of folly. How can you ask 
 men of large reason, large conscience, large affections, 
 large love for the good God, to believe any one of the 
 numerous schemes of the Trinity, the Miracles of the New 
 or Old Testament; to believe in the existence of a Devil 
 whom God has made, seeking to devour mankind ? How 
 can you ask such men to believe in the existence of an 
 angry God, jealous, capricious, selfish, and revengeful, who 
 has made an immeasurable hell under His feet, wherein 
 lie designs to crowd down ninety-nine thousand nine hun- 
 
80 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 dred and ninety-nine out of every hundred thousand of 
 His children ? Will you ask Humboldt, the greatest of 
 living philosophers, to believe that a wafer is “ the body 
 of God,” as the Catholics say ? or M. Comte, to believe 
 that the Bible is “ the word of God,” as the Protestants 
 say ? Will you ask a man of great genius, of great cul¬ 
 ture, to lay his whole nature in the dust, and submit to 
 some little man, with no genius, who only reads to him a 
 catechism which was dreamed by some celibate monks in 
 the dark ages of human history ? You cannot expect 
 such men to assent to that : as well might you ask the 
 whole solar system to revolve about the smallest satellite 
 that belongs to the planet Saturn. 
 
 A methodist minister explained the success of his sect 
 by saying, “We preach religion without philosophy.” 
 That is to say, religion without reason; resting on the 
 authority of the priest who preaches it. An eminent 
 Unitarian minister says, “ We also must preach religion' 
 without philosophy.” That is, religion without reason, 
 resting on the authority of the minister. What is the 
 effect of it ? Men who have philosophy, who have reason, 
 will shun your Unitarian and Methodist churches, and 
 keep to their reason and philosophy; and they will have 
 as little of such <f religion ” as possible. Will you ask a 
 philanthropic woman to believe that “ God hates sinners,” 
 and will abandon His own children to the eternal torments 
 of the devil, when the philanthropist would not leave the 
 devil's children to their infernal father's care, but lay 
 down her own life to save them ? Shall mortal men be¬ 
 lieve in a God meaner and less humane than they them¬ 
 selves ? 
 
 See the effect of this theology. The new literature of 
 our time, the new science of our time, the new philan¬ 
 thropy of our time, have no relation to the popular the¬ 
 ology, except that of hate and of warfare. There is a 
 very sad negation and denial of religion in the popular 
 literature. Religion is seldom appealed to in the Houses 
 of Parliament, in Old England or New England. It does 
 not appear as a conscious motive force in any of the 
 great actions of the age, in the great philanthropies, the 
 great philosophies and literatures, in the great commerce. 
 In the most popular writers of England, France, Germany, 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 81 
 
 religion does not appear at all as an acknowledged motive. 
 The ideal Brothers Cheeryble of Mr Dickens, the actual 
 philanthropists of Europe and America, are God^s men, 
 but not the Churches Christians. All the real piety which 
 appears in the works and words of Jesus of Nazareth, all 
 the real philanthropy, is bottomed on something exceed¬ 
 ingly different from the popular theology. 
 
 The immortality of the soul is represented as a curse; 
 and, accordingly, that immortality is denied by many 
 philosophical and good men. From the damnation of 
 theological immortality they flee away for relief to sheer 
 annihilation;—and it is a good exchange which they 
 make; for if the popular theology were true, then immor¬ 
 tality would be the greatest curse which the Almighty 
 God could inflict on mankind; and the whole human race 
 ought to go up in a mass before the Father, and say, 
 “ Annihilate us all at once, and make an end of vour 
 slow, everlasting, butchery of human souls ! 33 
 
 There is but one denomination of hell, and in respect 
 to this there is no difference between the Catholics and 
 the Protestants—only one quite modern sect of the latter 
 formally and utterly rejecting it. With that exception 
 the modern Christian Church is unitary on the ghastly 
 doctrine of eternal damnation, and it makes small odds 
 whether I quote from Aquinas, Quenstedt, or Edwards. 
 It is a favourite doctrine with the Catholic and Protestant 
 
 According to the popular theology the Elect are very 
 well satisfied with hell as the portion for their neighbours. 
 Listen to Jonathan Edwards, who is commonlv reckoned 
 one of the ablest intellectual men New-England ever bore 
 in her bosom ; a self-denying and good man, a man who 
 would have laid down his life for his brother, if his brother 
 had needed the sacrifice. Hear what he says, following 
 Calvin, Aquinas, and Augustine : “ The destruction of the 
 unfruitful 33 (and the unfruitful are those not elected to 
 eternal bliss) “ is of use to give the saints a greater sense 
 of their own happiness and of God^s grace to them.'” The 
 damned “ shall be tormented in the presence of the holy 
 angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. So they will 
 be tormented in the presence also of the glorified saints. 
 Hereby the saints will be made the more sensible how 
 
 VOL. xi. — Theism , §c. 6 
 
82 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 great their salvation is. When they shall see how great 
 the misery is from which God hath saved them, and how 
 great a difference lie hath made between their state and 
 the state of others, who were by nature, and perhaps for 
 a time by practice, no more sinful and ill-deserving than 
 any, it will give them a greater sense of the wonderful¬ 
 ness of God’s grace to them. Every time they look upon 
 the damned it will excite in them a lively and admiring 
 sense of the grace of God in making them so to differ.” 
 “ The view of the misery of the damned will double the 
 ardour of the love and gratitude of the saints in Heaven; ” 
 “ will make them prize his favour and love vastly the more, 
 and they will be so much the more happy in the enjoy¬ 
 ment of it.” 
 
 A good man on earth cannot eat his dinner, if a hungry 
 dog looks in his face, without giving him a bone, surely 
 the crumbs that fall from his table; but the elect of Mr 
 Edwards, chosen out of God’s Universe, are to whet their 
 appetite with the groans of the damned. What shall we 
 think of the Ethics which makes a Christian Minister 
 anticipate new joy in heaven from looking down upon 
 the torment of his former neighbours and friends, nay, of 
 his own children,—and whetting his appetite for Heaven 
 with the smoke of their torment steaming up from hell! 
 But such is the doctrine of the popular theology of Xew- 
 England and of Old England, and all Christendom. The 
 idea is sufficiently scriptural, and has long been claimed as 
 a “ doctrine of revelation.” Everybody who denies it 
 from Adamantine Origen of Alexandria to Hosea Ballou 
 in Boston, gets a bad name in the churches. The idea of 
 eternal damnation is the Goliath of the Church. Now I 
 say annihilation is a relief from that form of “ everlasting 
 life; ” and that is the cause why many men deny the 
 immortality of the soul. 
 
 Then God is represented as a tyrant; an omnipotence 
 of selfishness, with a mode of action which is wholly incon¬ 
 sistent with the facts of Nature and the laws of the human 
 mind. Of all the grim conceptions of Deity which men 
 have ever formed, from Tyrian Melkarth to Scandinavian 
 Loke, I know none more grim and abominable than the 
 conception of God set forth by some of the ablest writers 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 83 
 
 of the Catholic and Protestant Church. It revolts the 
 dearest instincts of human nature. 
 
 Accordingly some men deny the existence of God. 
 They not only deny the actuality of the popular theologi¬ 
 cal idea of God, but of all possible ideas of God. There is 
 much excuse for the speculative atheist in his denial. 
 
 The popular theological idea of God is not adequate to 
 the purposes of science. God is not represented as really 
 omnipresent, a constant and perpetual power, but as pre¬ 
 sent eminently in one spot called Heaven. A modern 
 Doctor of Divinity declares in an address, well studied, 
 and delivered before scholarly men, that we are not to 
 suppose that God is in all places as He is in some one 
 special place. Accordingly His action is to be regarded 
 as irregular and spasmodic. This doctrine, though seldom 
 plainly put, though often denied in terms, lies deep in the 
 popular theology—which knows no God immanent in the 
 Universe and yet transcendent thereof. It is the Bible 
 doctrine. Catholic and Protestant. 
 
 Science knows no limited and" local God ; it tells us of 
 a power immanent and uniform ; 
 
 u As full as perfect in a hair as heart.” 
 
 So then Science rejects the theological idea of God as 
 not being adequate for scientific purposes. 
 
 Then as Theology tells you of a God who loves one and 
 rejects nine hundred and ninety-nine out of the thousand, 
 modern Philanthropy rejects that idea of God, as inade¬ 
 quate to its purpose. Science rejects it because he is 
 impotent; Philanthropy rejects it because he is malignant. 
 
 The popular idea of God does lack actuality. It is a 
 conceivable nothing; but impossible, and involving as 
 much contradiction as the notion of a cubical sphere, or of 
 a thing which is and is not at the same time. The atheist 
 is right in denying the existence of an angry and jealous 
 God, who makes ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and 
 ninety-nine for ruin, and only one for bliss. The “ athe¬ 
 ism ” of Comte and Feuerbach is higher and better than 
 the theological idea of God, as represented by Jonathan 
 Edwards, the great champion of New-England divinity. 
 But Edwards only painted full length, and in colours, what 
 
84 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 Augustine and Aquinas and other great theological artists 
 had faintly sketched, with paler tints, shrinking back a 
 little from the gorgon head they dimly drew. 
 
 Now as this theology gives us such an unjust and un¬ 
 natural idea of God, of Man, and of the Relation between 
 the two, there has followed, as an unavoidable consequence 
 of this, a great denial of religion all over Christendom ; a 
 denial of the religious nature of man, of the immortality 
 of the soul, and of the existence of God. The great priests 
 are technical Christians everywhere; the great philoso¬ 
 phers and the great philanthropists are not technical 
 Christians anywhere. I mean to say the Church does 
 not recognize them as belonging to its bosom ;—and they 
 do not belong to the Churches bosom. What is more— 
 the sincerity of the great priests in their professions of 
 theological belief, is popularly doubted just in proportion 
 to the intellect and education of the priest; while nobody 
 doubts that the denial of the philosopher is sincere and 
 honest. Out of the priesthood the great minds reject the 
 popular theology ; many of them I fear reject all theology. 
 Of all the greatest minds of the Germanic race, Humboldt, 
 Von-Buch, Oken, Oersted, Vogt, not one of them is 
 technically a Christian. The great Germanic minds not 
 long ago deceased—Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Gothe, Schiller, 
 and the rest were anything but “ professing Christians ; ” 
 not one of them could accept the theology of the Church 
 which baptized him. The leaders of the new French 
 literature,—Comte, the Communists, and George Sand, 
 and several popular writers—they are atheistic : I mean 
 speculatively atheistic. I fear that the leaders of English 
 literature are not at all better, only in the English there 
 is a greater amount of national reserve ; they do not speak 
 right out, as the French or Germans. The later works 
 of the greatest mind of England at this day, have no re¬ 
 ligiousness in them, according to the common sense of 
 the word, and he has been led even to go far towards 
 absolute denial of all religion. 
 
 In England there is a social aristocracy composed of 
 rich or well-descended men, well instructed also in their 
 intellect; they seem almost entirely destitute of conscious 
 religion; they have no theology which satisfies their in¬ 
 tellectual and religious need. Some of them turn round, 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 85 
 
 and follow tlie dim candle of tradition leading them back 
 to mediaeval, or even ante-Christian darkness. Some 
 positively deny the truths of religion which come to con¬ 
 sciousness in every age,—mediaeval or ante-Christian. 
 The most hopeful it is who feel their way along by the 
 natural instincts of the soul—feeling after God if haply 
 they may find Him who lives and moves and has His being 
 in them, as they theirs in Him. Near the other extreme 
 of society there is a large body of hardy, able, thinking 
 men who treat the popular theology with well-deserved 
 scoff and scorn; but yet they see no clear light. 
 
 On the Eastern Continent, in addition to those classes 
 there is another,—the army of learned men, whose doubts 
 are yet deeper than the English, and their denial less 
 compromising and more public. Since the breaking up 
 of Paganism in Europe, there has never been such a 
 period of distrust, of anarchy, and of chaos in religion. 
 
 Is it any better in America ? Here the ablest men are 
 so busy in the race for money or for rank, men are so 
 uniformly “ up for California,” or “ up for office,” that 
 there seems to be little thought in that quarter directed 
 to theological or religious matters. Among these men 
 compliance with popular opinion and popular forms, I 
 suppose often means the same in America in our time, as 
 in Rome in the days of Cicero. * 
 
 Newton and Leibnitz two hundred years ago were the 
 tallest heads in Europe; they were the leaders also in the 
 theology of Europe, and a strong consciousness of God 
 pervades all the writings of those mighty men. -^But the 
 minds that at this day take the place of the Newtons and 
 Leibnitzes of the last age, are silent on the matter, or else 
 mock it to scorn. I do not know a single great philoso¬ 
 pher in all Christendom who is, in the technical sense of 
 the churches, a “ Christian,” or who would wish to be. 
 Of course these men have the elements of religion,—love 
 of justice, love of truth, love of men, and of faithfulness 
 to their own souls; but they do not often make it shape 
 these elements into conscious religion, and seem to have 
 little conscious trust in God. 
 
 This theology has led to a great amount of real rejec¬ 
 tion of religion by men who wish to be faithful to their 
 nature in all its parts. It is of no use to say they are bad 
 
86 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 men. They are not bad men : they lead the science and 
 philanthropies of the world; and I am afraid that the 
 average speculative “ atheist,” as he calls himself, is at 
 this day better than the average speculative “ Christians,” 
 as they call themselves. The atheist has abandoned re¬ 
 ligion because it is painted in such a form that it seems 
 worse than atheism. The Church taught him his denial, 
 and it ought to baptize him, and not blaspheme him. I 
 think Calvin and Edwards have driven more men from 
 religion than all the speculative “atheists” have ever done 
 from Pomponatius to Feuerbach. 
 
 Then there are bad men who reject religion, reject it in 
 their badness. The popular theology is no terror to the 
 wicked man. The corrupt politician of England, America, 
 Germany, France, the extortioner, the kidnapper,—they 
 pretend to accept this theology, they “join the Church,” 
 bring the minister over to their side, and do not fear a 
 single fagot in the great hell of theology. They may 
 laugh at the theological devil, they can beat him at his 
 own weapons. The baron of the Middle Ages living for 
 the flesh, and against the better instincts of his soul, kept 
 clear of the Church till death knocked at his door, then 
 all at once compounded for sin, appeased the clergy, and 
 paid off the old score. The modern freebooters pay as 
 they go. It is the cheaper way. What does the American 
 slave-holder care for the devil, for hell, or for the God of 
 Christian theology ? He gets ministers enough to baptize 
 slave-holding, and prove it is “only the application of the 
 golden rule to life.” “ Christianity ” is not a terror to 
 evil-doers, but it is a terror to good-doers ; for at least 
 the American churches launch their feeble thunders in the 
 defence of every popular wickedness. 
 
 Now see the effect of this theology on such as ac¬ 
 cept it. 
 
 Note first its effect on the Feelings. Religion is not 
 thought a welcome thing, a thing that is to be loved for 
 its own sake. Men do not love to speak of it; it is a 
 subject almost wholly banished from “ good society.” It 
 is sad, grim, melancholy; it is not love, it is fear; almost 
 wholly fear. If you take the theological idea of God, you 
 cannot love Him,—I defy anybody to love Jonathan 
 Edwards's or John Calvin's conception of the Deity : you 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 87 
 
 can only fear him as the great jailor and hangman and 
 tormentor of the universe, the divine exploiterer of the 
 race. His world is represented as a great inquisition— 
 the torture-chamber holding in its hideous embrace all but 
 ten in the million ! Ask the children brought up in 
 families who believe much in this theology, if they ever 
 liked religion : ask the grown men. Look in the faces of 
 the severe sects who take this theology to heart, and 
 what sad, joyless faces they are. Read the publications 
 of the American Tract Society, read the New-England 
 Primer, the popular books treating of religion and cir¬ 
 culated in all Catholic countries, and you see that this re¬ 
 ligion is fear, and not joy. Men hold their breath when 
 it thunders lest God should hear them breathe, and lay at 
 them with his lioditninof. I once heard an eminent Trini- 
 
 O O'' 
 
 tarian minister preach in this city that it was wholly im¬ 
 possible for God to love any man except just so far as 
 that man believed all the doctrines of the Bible and the 
 New-England Primer, and kept every commandment in 
 both of these books. So, then, there could only be a very 
 few millions of the whole world that God cared anything 
 about. All the rest he would damn; and they would get 
 hell-fire, but no pity from angel, God, or devil. No Abra¬ 
 ham would give Dives a drop of water from his fingers 
 tip. Could you love such a God ? I should hate him; 
 not as I should dislike a tyrant like Cesar Borgia, or even 
 as I should loathe a New-England kidnapper, but as I 
 should hate a devil. 
 
 God is represented as selfish and only selfish, and self¬ 
 ish continually. He has the power to bless men, and pre¬ 
 fers to curse them. Religion is represented as selfishness, 
 only carried out to all eternity,—and such selfishness, too, 
 as none but pirates and kidnappers ever practise on earth. 
 “ Aha,” say the blessed Catholics of Aquinas, “ Aha,” say 
 the elect Puritans of Edwards, as they look on the torture 
 of their brethren, “ Let God be praised for the torment 
 of the wicked; so religion bids ! ” 
 
 This crow of fear flies round all the churches of Chris¬ 
 tendom. Men tremble at death; they are afraid of hell. 
 Read the Dies Ires of the Catholic Church, the “ Judg¬ 
 ment Hymns ” of the Protestants, or still worse, hear them 
 sung by some full-voiced choir to appropriate music, and 
 
88 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 you understand what lies at the bottom of the ecclesiasti¬ 
 cal service. Attend a funeral in one of the stricter sects, 
 —the funeral of the best man you can find, but one who 
 was not a “ church-member ; 39 —and how cheerless, how 
 hopeless, how comfortless ! You would think that the 
 door which led to the street where the last and loved re¬ 
 mains of the friend, husband, father, were to be borne 
 out, opened into the bottomless pit. Men talk of death, 
 and say it is a dreadful thing to come into the presence 
 of the Living God ! Are we not always in Thy presence, 
 0 Living Father ? Are not these flowers Thy gift ? and 
 when I also blossom out of the body, and the husks of the 
 flesh drop away, is it a dreadful thing to come into Thy 
 presence, 0 Living God; to be taken to the arms of the 
 Mother who bore me ? 
 
 I once knew a boy of early development in religion, 
 dry-nursed at school, against his father^ command, on 
 the New-England Primer, and he was filled with ghastly 
 fear of the God represented in that Primer, and the hell 
 thereof, and the devil therein, and he used to sob himself 
 to sleep with the prayer, “O God! I beg that I may not be 
 damned ! 33 until at last, before eight years old, driven to 
 desperation by that fear, he made way with that Primer, 
 and with its grim God, and Hell, and Devil, and found 
 rest for his soul in the spontaneous teachings of the re¬ 
 ligious sentiment which sprung up in his heart. There 
 are many who have been tortured by it all their lives 
 long, and who have not sobbed themselves to sleep after 
 fourscore years of torment. 
 
 You may divide the feelings into two classes : one that 
 seeks a finite object,—father, mother, child, brother, 
 sister, aunt, friend: the other which seeks the infinite 
 Object, the Father and Mother of all. This theology is 
 poison and blight and mildew to both of these classes of 
 feelings. It makes the trembling mother afraid that she 
 shall love her child too well; so the desire of the finite 
 object is balked of its satisfaction. She cannot love the 
 God painted to her in the dark theology of our day—and 
 so the infinite hunger of the soul is yet unstilled. 
 
 Note its effect on the Intellect. It debases the mind. 
 Quoth Protestant theology, “ Reason is carnal : you must 
 accept the Scriptures as the word of God, the Old Testa- 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 89 
 
 ment as His first word, and tlie New Testament as His 
 last word; therein God has spoken once for all; you can 
 get nothing further from Him. You must prostrate your 
 mind to the Bible ; you must believe it all.” 
 
 The 'Roman Church is the great idol of the Catholics : 
 it is infallible. The Pope is the Church in little; he is 
 infallible, and is God, so far as doctrine is concerned. 
 With the Protestants the Bible stands in just the same 
 place; it is God to the Protestant theology, to all intents 
 and purposes, so far as doctrine is concerned. 
 
 This theology stands in the way of physical science. 
 Here is the scheme of the Universe which belongs to the 
 popular theology : There is an expanse called the earth 
 with its hills and valleys, rivers, lakes, and seas; next 
 below it, there are the waters which are under the earth; 
 then above it is the firmament, beneath which are the 
 sun, the moon, and the stars, and above it the waters 
 which are over the earth; the sun, moon, and stars move 
 round the earth. This rude notion has long stood in the 
 way of science; it wrung from Alphonso of Castile the 
 exclamation, “ If God had asked my advice at the 
 creation, the world would have been more simple and 
 better arranged.” Galileo must subscribe to this scheme 
 of the Universe, or be burned at the stake. The Jesuits 
 who edited Newton's Principia declare that his theory is 
 contrary to theology—and they publish his mathematical 
 demonstrations of the revolutions of the earth only as a 
 “hypothesis,” as a theory, not a fact. 
 
 The popular theology meets the Geologists at every 
 turn, and denies the most obvious phenomena of sense, 
 and the strictest conclusions of science. An eminent 
 theologian, a professor in the most liberal theological 
 school in America, once said: “I can believe that God 
 created all the geological strata of the Earth, with their 
 fossil remains, all at once, just as they are to-day, much 
 easier than I can believe the popular theology is mistaken 
 in its account of the creation in six days ! ” Geology 
 must give way to Genesis ! 
 
 It stands in the way of history. This is the theological 
 scheme of human history : About six thousand years ago 
 God created one man, and out of one of his ribs formed 
 one woman. The human race is descended from that pair. 
 
90 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 About fifteen hundred years later lie destroyed by a flood 
 all their descendants except a single family, from which 
 all the men now on earth have descended. God chose one 
 family out of all the rest, made a bargain with them, re¬ 
 vealed Himself to them, and not to others, and loved them 
 while He hated the rest, and protected His chosen by con¬ 
 stant miracles, giving Abraham a son miraculously born, 
 then miraculously commanding the father to offer him as 
 a bloody sacrifice; and at last God Himself becomes a 
 man, born miraculously, and lives a human life on earth, 
 is put to death, and thence returns to life and divinity 
 once more. Theology sharply opposes every discovery, 
 every fact, and every thought which is at variance with 
 these assumptions. It demands belief therein as the con¬ 
 dition of religion and of acceptance with God. 
 
 See how this theology affects the Conscience. If you 
 wish to know what is right, for the standard of ultimate 
 appeal, the theologian sends you to the Bible,—full of 
 blessed things, but no master; it contains the opinions of 
 forty or fifty different men, the greater part of them living 
 from four to ten hundred years before Jesus, and belong¬ 
 ing to a people we should now call half-civilized. For 
 example, if you ask, Is it right for the community to kill 
 a man who has slain one of his neighbours, when the com¬ 
 munity have caught and put him in a jail, and can keep 
 him there all his life, shut from doing harm ?—the theo¬ 
 logian sends you to the Bible, and tells you that once, 
 (nobody knows when), somebody (nobody knows who), 
 in some place (nobody knows where), said, “Whoso 
 sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed ! ” 
 —-and therefore to the end of time you shall hang every 
 murderer. 
 
 You ask, Is it right to catch a dark-coloured man, and 
 make him your slave for life and pay him nothing for his 
 services ? and theology answers, “ Yes, for Abraham did 
 so, even with white men, and everything that Abraham 
 did of course was right;” and next, “Paul sent back a 
 man who had fled from bondage,”—only he was not black, 
 but white; and thirdly,—and this is the great argument 
 of all ,—“ Ham, the son of Noah, laughed at his father 
 when he was drunk, and when Noah rose up from his 
 debauch he cursed the son of Ham., saying, f Cursed be 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 91 
 
 Canaan ! a servant of servants shall lie be nnto his 
 brethren ! ’ and therefore the whites are right in enslaving 
 the blacks.” This is the theological argument. 
 
 I ask. Must I obey the law statute of men, when it 
 offends my conscience ? “ Yes,” says Theology, “ for when 
 Nero was emperor of Rome a poor sailmaker said, f The 
 powers that be are ordained of God/ and ‘ whosoever 
 resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God/ ” 
 The fact that Pauks noble life was a manly resistance to 
 tyrants, and a brave obedience to God, is not taken into 
 the account. 
 
 This theology leads men to disregard the natural laws 
 of both body and spirit, in order to keep an arbitrary 
 command. So it underrates the natural morality and 
 natural piety. Men keep the Ten Commandments : 
 therein they do well; but they forget that every faculty 
 of the body, every faculty of the spirit—of the mind, 
 the conscience, the heart, and the soul,—has .also its 
 commandments, just as imperative as though they had 
 been thundered'forth by the voice of the Most High, 
 amidst the clouds of Sinai. The popular theology denies 
 this. 
 
 See the effect of this theology on Practical Life. Religion 
 is largely separated from daily work and daily charity. 
 It has a place for itself, the meeting-house; a time for 
 itself, Sunday or the hour of prayer. It is not thought 
 that “ saving religion ” has anything important to do in 
 the chaisemaker’s yard, in the tailor’s shop, or on the farm 
 of the husbandman, in the counting-room of the merchant, 
 or the banking-house of the capitalist. Religion consists, 
 first, in belief; next in sacraments,—ritual work, attend¬ 
 ing meeting by passive bodily presence, baptism, prayer 
 in words, and communion, as it is called, by bread and 
 wine. Religion is for eternity; its function is to get 
 souls “ saved,” “ redeemed; ”—saved from an angry God, 
 redeemed from eternal torment; not saved from a mean 
 and selfish and wicked life, not saved from this cowardly 
 and boyish fear of death,—by no means that. 
 
 A practical philanthropist who picks drunkards out of 
 the mire, gets them washed and clothed and restored to 
 their right mind, once visited a poor widow in a cold 
 winter day. She had no wood to burn, no means to get 
 
92 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 it. A clergyman was trying to console her; “ Have faith 
 in Christ/'’ said he, “ He will help you !” Quoth the prac¬ 
 tical man, “ It is not faith in Christ she lacks, she has as 
 much of that as you or I, it is wood she stands in need of. 
 Her faith will not save her, with'the thermometer at zero. 
 Do you think the Saviour will come and tip her up two 
 feet of wood at her door ? No such thing ! She has got 
 faith, but wants fire-wood.” The missionary went his 
 way, there was no more that he could do, the practical 
 man had the wood there in an hour ! 
 
 The Unitarians and Universalists have less of the 
 popular theology than the other sects. I have heard Or¬ 
 thodox men confess the fact that these heretics were the 
 best neighbours, the best friends, the most honest busi¬ 
 ness men, eminent in charity, and all good works ; and I 
 believe the praise was pretty just: but, they said, “ they 
 are the worst Christians in the world, and all their good¬ 
 ness is good for nothing, except in this life, and God does 
 not value their works a straw; at the last day He will 
 pass by every Universalist and Unitarian in the world, 
 with all their philanthropy, to save some Orthodox deacon 
 who never went out of his way to do a kind deed.” 
 
 Hence it comes to pass that men who are eminent for 
 theological piety are not to be trusted. Their theology 
 makes them attend to beliefs, rituals, and sacraments, 
 but there it ends. Mr Screw has the devoutest belief in 
 the popular theology, never fails of a sacrament, never 
 cherishes a doubt. His morning and evening are fringed 
 with a form of prayer, but he will devour a widow's house 
 the next moment, and say grace after the meal. An Ara¬ 
 bian proverb says, “A man who has been a pilgrimage to 
 Mecca is not to be trusted again.” Men that have much 
 of this theology, and its “ piety,” generally have a bad 
 name in business. A business man told me he always 
 wanted more indorsement on a note from a long-faced 
 man, eminent in theology, than from a common citizen 
 who met him in the street. “Strict Christians” are said 
 to be worse in these matters than other men ; I mean 
 more covetous, more sly, more grasping, less to be relied 
 upon. The severe sects are austere in their theology, 
 loose in business; strict in sacrament, lax in charity; 
 
THE POPULAR 'THEOLOGY. 
 
 93 
 
 instant in prayer, not seasonable in humane works. If 
 you want self-denial to spread abroad the doctrines of 
 their sect, there are no men so ready to make such a sac¬ 
 rifice. The efforts which have been made in the stricter 
 American Churches to carry what they call the Gospel—• 
 but which is only their theology—to Heathen lands, are 
 of immense value to the men who have made the sacrifice; 
 whether the Heathen are thereby profited I will not say. 
 But for works in morality, in philanthropy, in charity, 
 these sects are not first and foremost. Of self-denial for 
 a theological purpose they have the manliest abundance, 
 but of self-denial for humanity the meanest lack. 
 
 The present position of the clergy is to be attributed 
 to the character of their theology. There are at this day 
 about twenty-eight thousand Protestant clergymen in the 
 United States, and about a thousand Catholic priests. 
 Almost all of them come from the midde class in society, 
 —the class most remarkable for industry, enterprise, 
 charity, morality, and piety,—in a word, for religion. 
 They have the most costly culture of any class in the 
 nation: the professional education of the clergymen has 
 cost the public more than the professional culture of all 
 the lawyers, or all the doctors, or all the merchants and 
 men of science and literature in the country; for most of 
 these latter men pay for their education as they go, or at 
 any rate their fathers pay for it, but a large special outlay 
 is made by public charity, for the education of the minis¬ 
 ter,—very properly made too. Nine-tenths of these, I 
 believe, who accept this calling, come to it from a love of 
 it, from a desire to serve God in it; not from selfishness, 
 but with the expectation of self-denial. Surely at this 
 day there is little from without to attract a man to so 
 thankless a calling, for their average pay does not equal 
 that of a fireman on a railroad. They count it the holiest 
 and most arduous office in the world. But yet, starting 
 from that class, with that education, the costliest in the 
 land, and with such noble motives,—how very little do 
 they bring to pass, in promoting sentiments of love to 
 God and men; how little in diffusing ideas of truth and 
 justice, or in any noble action in any practical department 
 of life ! They do exceedingly little for any one of the 
 
94 
 
 T3IE POPULAJS THEOLOGY. 
 
 three. Many of these men stand in the way of the human 
 race, and while mankind is painfully toiling up-hill they 
 block the wheels forward and not hindward. 
 
 This is not wholly the fault of these men. They are 
 earnest and self-denying, and mean to be faithful, most of 
 them. But it is the bad theology they start with which 
 hinders them,—their false idea of God, of man, and of 
 Religion,—the Relation between God and Man. 
 
 They are working with bad tools,—dull theology, dull 
 sermons. Once a clam shell was the best cutting instru¬ 
 ment which the human race had used or discovered. 
 Then it was received with thankfulness of heart. But if 
 a man in these times should go out into the fields to cut 
 grass or corn with a clam shell, how do you think his 
 day^s work would compare with that of a man who mowed 
 with scythes, or reaped with sickles, or with shears moved 
 by horses cut down his acre in an hour ? Yerily the fields 
 are white for harvest, the labourers many, but with the 
 clam shell for sickle, they tread down more with their 
 feet than they bind up with arms. 
 
 The clergymen cannot defend their theology. Attacks 
 have long ago been made against the philosophical part of 
 it, and they have never been repelled ; against the histor¬ 
 ical part of it, and there is no satisfactory answer thereto. 
 The Unitarians have attacked the divinity of Jesus, the 
 Universalists the eternity of hell, and the assaults have 
 not been philosophically met. There is a breach in the 
 theologic wall, not filled up save with denunciations, 
 which are but straws that a breath blows off, or which rot 
 of their own accord. 
 
 Within a few years most serious attacks have been 
 made on the “ Inspiration of the Scriptures.” Its phy¬ 
 sics are shown to be false science, its metaphysics false 
 philosophy, its history often mistaken. In England, Mr 
 Hennell denies the divine origin of Christianity, and writes 
 a laboured book to prove that it came as other forms of 
 religion have come,—the best thought of noble men. In 
 Germany, Mr Strauss, with a troop of scholars before 
 and behind him, denies the accuracy of the history of 
 the New Testament; denies the divine birth of Jesus, 
 his miracles, his ascension, his resurrection — they are 
 what one of the latest writers of the New Testament calls 
 
THE POPULAE THEOLOGY. 
 
 95 
 
 c< old wives* fables ; ** Mr Newman tells of “ the Soul, 
 her sorrow's and her aspirations/* and shows the “ Phases 
 of Faith ** which a devout and truthful spirit passes through 
 in the journey after religion, exposing the dreadful famine 
 in the churches, and showing that much of the popular 
 theology is a mere show-bread which it is not possible for 
 a man to feed on. No man shows that Newman is mis¬ 
 taken, none refutes Strauss, no man answers Hennell. 
 Books enough are written it is true: “ Lives of Jesus,** 
 €C Defences of Miracles,** “ Evidences of Christianity/*— 
 to prove that some men wrote some books with such mi¬ 
 raculous helps from God that they could make no mistakes, 
 but yet the mistakes are there in the books;—“Voices of 
 the Church/* “ Eclipses of Faith/* and the like, and de¬ 
 nunciations “ Against Freethinking/* without stint. Now 
 and then a feeble charge is repelled, a weak position of the 
 assailant is reconquered, but still the theologians are con¬ 
 tinually beaten and driven back before the well-served 
 artillery of thought. 
 
 Church-membership‘is thought a needful condition of 
 salvation : without that a man is not a Christian in full, 
 and is not sure of anything good hereafter. But very 
 few join the Church. Of the twenty-three millions of 
 America, there are not three and a half million members 
 of the Protestant Church, not one hundred and thirty to 
 a minister;—a little more than three million Protestant 
 church-members, a little more than three million slaves 
 also. Singular statistics ! so many church-members, so 
 many slaves ! There were never so many voters with so 
 small a proportion of church-members ; never so small a 
 proportionate sprinkling of baptism in the face of the com¬ 
 munity ; never so little taking of the sacraments of the 
 Church. 
 
 Ecclesiastical interests do not thrive. Compare the in¬ 
 terest men feel in a bank, in a manufacturing company, 
 in a lyceum, with what they take in a Church. And yet 
 the minister tells them that the bank, the lyceum, and the 
 manufactory are only for to-day and to-morrow—for the 
 body, while the Church is for the soul, and for ever ! 
 
 What is the reason of this lack of interest ? Even 
 clergymen themselves partake of the general dulness, and 
 do not study vigorously as the doctors and men of science; 
 
9 6 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 do not plead for the souls of men, as the lawyer for their 
 money; do not toil as the merchant or mechanic for his 
 gain. Ministers do not study the science of their calling 
 as the physician, the engineer, the manufacturer of cloth 
 or leather, the geologist, the watchmaker, studies the 
 science of his calling. Even the almanac-maker is a phi¬ 
 losopher ; the clergyman,—how seldom does he show any 
 tinge of analogous culture ? 
 
 In practical affairs the American clergy have but little 
 good influence on public morals and manners ; an influence 
 not at all in proportion to the number, the education, the 
 character, the position, and the motives of these men. 
 
 Politicians declare there is no law higher than an Act 
 of Congress, which makes it felony to give a cup of cold 
 water to a man fleeing from bondage. What do the 
 clergymen say ? “ The powers that be are ordained of 
 
 God, and whoso resisteth the powers that be, resisteth 
 the ordinance of God.” “ Religion is an excellent thing 1 
 
 o o 7 
 
 says the politician, “ for everything but politics : there 
 it makes men mad.” The minister does not say, “ I am 
 not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth the words of 
 soberness and truth :”—not at all. Felix trembled before 
 Paul preaching; now Paul in the pulpit, preaching, trem¬ 
 bles before Felix in the pew, slumbering. The statesman 
 says, “ Religion must not be applied to politics : there let 
 us be practical atheists.” The minister says, “ I will not 
 apply religion to politics. Be practical atheists there. I 
 will not disturb you. My Kingdom is not of this world.” 
 
 Traders apply to business the same principle which the 
 politician applies to the State, and say, Religion is an 
 excellent thing everywhere but in business: there it 
 makes men mad. The c golden rule ’ is the last one that 
 the merchant ought to have in his desk; it is wholly 
 unknown to the official r sealer of weights and measures/ 
 Let us not apply religion to business.” The clergymen 
 answer, “ Let us not apply religion to business. Here 
 •let us be practical atheists together. The golden rule 
 is for the pulpit desk; for Sunday, not for the count¬ 
 ing-house and the merchant's shop. Religion is to get 
 the soul saved, not to prevent the extortion of the usurer, 
 or the tyranny of the oppressor. Business is business, 
 religion is religion.” 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 97 
 
 Different traders make particular application of this rule 
 to their several specialities. The liquor dealer says, “ Re¬ 
 ligion is an excellent thing everywhere but in the rum 
 trade : there it makes men mad. Let us never apply it to 
 the sale of intoxicating drink.” The clergyman says, 
 “ Let it be so.” The dealer in human flesh declares, 
 “ Religion is a most excellent thing in all matters except 
 slave-trading : there it makes men mad. Let us not apply 
 religion to the ‘ patriarchal institution/ ” The clergyman 
 answers, “ Slavery is of God. Abraham was a slave¬ 
 holder; Christ Jesus says nothing against the worst evils 
 of Grecian or of Roman slavery,—not a word against buy¬ 
 ing slaves, breeding slaves, selling slaves, beating slaves, 
 or putting them to death. It is plain that he approved of 
 the institution, and designed that it should be perpetual. 
 The great Apostle to the Gentiles sent back a runaway 
 slave, thus executing the fugitive slave act of those times, 
 and giving an example to Christians r to fulfil all right¬ 
 eousness/ It is only ‘ natural religion 3 which forbids 
 slavery, the heathenism of pagan Seneca and Modestinus. 
 Christians are not in a state of Nature, but of Grace. 
 One of ‘ the advantages of a revelation 3 is this—the kid¬ 
 napper may keep his bondmen for ever. Mr Jefferson said 
 all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator 
 with certain natural and unalienable Rights, amongst 
 others with the Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of 
 Happiness. He was an infidel, stumbling by the light of 
 Nature ; but we have a more excellent way, and hold 
 slaves by divine revelation which'transcends the light of 
 Nature. Let us not destroy slavery by c natural religion/ 
 but preserve it by f Christianity/ It is a good thing to 
 have as many slaves as church-members ! ” 
 
 At this day the popular preaching does very little to 
 correct the great popular sins of the people. It does more 
 to encourage them. Here are the vices of the leading 
 class of men in their period of calculation after the period 
 of passion has passed by—covetousness of money, ambi¬ 
 tion for political and social rank. Both of these are un¬ 
 scrupulous in their modes of action. Does the body of 
 clergymen do anything to correct this evil,—corruption in 
 trade, corruption in politics ? Far more I think to en¬ 
 courage each of these leading vices of the age. 
 
 VOL. xi. — Theism, <gc. 
 
 7 
 
98 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 America invades the other nations. The pulpit never 
 stands in front of the cannon. Who preached against the 
 Mexican War? How many ministers, think you, in the 
 twenty-eight thousand Protestant pulpits ? Who will 
 preach against the present national lust for land ? Extor¬ 
 tioners levy their usury to the ruin of the borrower,—the 
 pulpit does not say a word against it. Politicians declare 
 that the great object of government is the protection of 
 property,—the pulpit knows no higher object for govern¬ 
 ment ; “ take care of the rich, and they will take care of 
 the poor.” Intemperance floods the cities, fills the Alms¬ 
 house and the Jail,—the pulpit says but little : thank God, 
 in humble places it does say something, though the metro¬ 
 politan pulpit commonly “ hangs out ” for Hum. Licen¬ 
 tiousness mows down the beauty of the girl, and prostitutes 
 the manly dignity of the man,—but the pulpit is silent as 
 the house of death. It has forgotten the book of Pro¬ 
 verbs. The kidnapper comes to Boston, New York, Phila¬ 
 delphia, to seize our fellow-worshippers,—and most of the 
 churches are on his side. In this city, a man fleeing from 
 slavery, seized by ruffians and confined in our illegal jail, 
 brought into most imminent peril, sends round his petition 
 to the churches for their prayer; the churches are dumb ; 
 eloquent ministers come out and defend the stealing of 
 men. The American pulpit is powerless against sin : it is 
 a dumb dog that cannot bark at the wolf. The great 
 Rabbis of the popular theology are on the side of every 
 popular sin. What Roman augur ever opposed a Roman 
 wickedness ? 
 
 All over the world woman is in a state of subjection to 
 man, almost everywhere counted inferior to him, a tool for 
 his convenience, created only because it was “ not good 
 for him to be alone; ” throughout Christendom deprived 
 of the ecclesiastical, political, and academic rights or privi¬ 
 leges of men, and consequently oppressed by the strong 
 arm. What has the Christian Church to say ? 
 
 Do not blame the minister too much. He is the victim 
 of his theological circumstances, and is commonly a great 
 deal better than his creed. He is wiser than he dares to 
 preach. His theology tells him that religion is not for the 
 earth but for Heaven; not to make the world better, but 
 insurance on souls, to get them saved from an angry God. 
 
. TEE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 99 
 
 What he calls “ means of Grace ” are not a diligent use of 
 all our faculties of body and mind, each in its normal 
 mode of activity; but the vicarious sufferings of Jesus of 
 Nazareth are the Divine Cause, and a belief in the popular 
 theology is the Human Condition; all our “ righteous¬ 
 nesses are as filthy rags/'’ and shelter no man from the 
 wrath of God and the flames of hell. It tells him that the 
 function of the minister is not to promote *piety and 
 morality, but, first, to intercede with an offended God for 
 the sake of an offending people ; next, to administer the 
 sacrament of baptism,—to sprinkle a little water on the 
 face of a baby,—and of the Christian Communion,—to 
 give some men a morsel of bread to eat and a drop of 
 wine to drink in the meeting-house; and next, to expound 
 the Scriptures according to the standard of his sect. That 
 is the ecclesiastic theological function of a minister, where¬ 
 by he is “ to save souls ; ” this he thinks is “ to preach 
 Christ and Him crucified/'’ So the churches are not 
 chiefly institutions of religion, to teach piety and ‘morality; 
 but institutions of theology, and are controlled not by the 
 blameless religion of Jesus, but by Theology and Mammon. 
 In small country towns, where the people are ruled by the 
 clergy, the churches are mainly controlled by Theology ; 
 and in large wealthy towns, where another class of men 
 bears sway, they are controlled chiefly by Mammon. 
 The Church sitting on her cockatrice^s eggs in the one 
 case, hatches mainly churchlings, and in the other chiefly 
 worldlings. 
 
 So the churches are no defence against political tyranny : 
 they are on its side; in old England, New-England, 
 France, Germany, Russia, all through Christendom, the 
 churches side with despotic power. They are no protec¬ 
 tion against practical atheism: if the statesmen say, 
 “ There is no Higher Law,'” the leading clergy answer, 
 “ Very true ! there is none. - ” They are no defence against 
 covetousness: the great ecclesiastical teachers of Chris¬ 
 tendom are its allies. All the popular vices are sure to 
 have the churches on their side. 
 
 None of the great ideas of the times originate with the 
 clergy and the Church: new thought is not generated 
 there. Theology keeps 
 
 “ Hawking at geology and schism,” 
 
 7 * . 
 
100 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 and hates new ideas. None of the great sentiments of 
 devotion to God are cradled there : Theology mumbles its 
 ritual, and scoffs at the light of Christian sentiment. None 
 of the great philanthropies begin there : Theology is get¬ 
 ting men saved from future torment, and kills philan¬ 
 thropy. The temperance movement, the peace movement, 
 the education movement, the anti-slavery movement, the 
 great movement for the elevation of woman, the philan¬ 
 thropy which would heal the criminal, cure the sick, teach 
 the deaf, dumb, blind, and the fool,—all these are foreign 
 to the Church and the clergy, to the popular theology 
 which underlies both. 
 
 You know the qualities most valued in a man called 
 Christian, in all the sects of the sectarian churches :—be¬ 
 lief in all the doctrines of his sect; a devout attendance 
 on all the forms thereof; a sad countenance ;—much talk 
 on theological matters; the reading of theological books. 
 That makes up what is called “ Christianity.” Do you 
 think that Jesus would recognize such things as “ the es¬ 
 sentials of religion ” in one of his followers ? 
 
 How would you judge of the health of a man who pro¬ 
 ceeded in that way; a man who was thick with the 
 doctors, who was always puddering with medicine, and 
 reading medical treatises, and everlastingly in a fuss 
 about his head, or his heart, or his stomach,—his di¬ 
 gestion, or his circulation ? Would you think that was 
 a proof that he was sound and healthy ? The doctors 
 might say he was a very good patient, but a very silly 
 man. 
 
 A celebrated clergyman of America once preached a 
 funeral sermon on a distinguished statesman then lately 
 deceased. The minister claimed the politician as an 
 exemplary follower of Christ, “ He had full faith in the 
 leading doctrines of the Gospel.” What do you think 
 they were ? Jesus of Nazareth would be a little amazed 
 to hear : “ The sinfulness of man; the Divinity of Christ ; 
 the necessity of His atonement; need of being born again, 
 and that his own personal hope of salvation depended on 
 the promises and grace of Christ, and that he now wished 
 to throw himself upon it as a practical and blessed 
 remedy.” That was what a Doctor of Divinity took for 
 proof that a famous Am erican statesman, almost eighty 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 101 
 
 years old, was a Christian ! He did not ask for piety, not 
 for morality, only for a belief in these doctrines of the 
 popular theology. 
 
 If Jesus of Nazareth were to come back, and bear 
 the same relation to the nineteenth century which he 
 bore so blessedly to the first, it seems to me that the 
 first thing he would preach against is what is called 
 “ Christianity ” in these days ;—I mean the Theology of 
 Christendom. i 
 
 This theology is the greatest evil of our times. It stands 
 in the way of the emancipation of man. It defends the 
 despotism of the Church, and the despotism of the State, 
 the despotism of the noble over the proletary in Europe, 
 of the master over the slave in America, of the capitalist 
 over the labourer, of the rich over the poor, of the 
 learned over the ignorant, and last of all, the despotism 
 of man over woman. It is a lion in the path of human¬ 
 kind. 
 
 This theology rests on two great pillars as its founda¬ 
 tion, the Jachin and Boaz of theology. 
 
 I. The notion that God is finite in His wisdom, justice, 
 love, and holiness—only infinite in power to damn ; that 
 He is a jealous, angry, and revengeful God, with eternal 
 hell behind Him, wherein He will torture for ever the vast 
 majority of His children, and that Man is wicked by nature, 
 subject to the wrath of God, and utterly incapable, by his 
 own efforts, of escaping from it. 
 
 II. The notion that Christ has made an atonement for 
 the sin of the world, and by his sufferings and death has 
 mitigated the anger of the Jealous God, who has given a 
 conditional pardon of sin and promise of salvation, and 
 that the condition of this Salvation is a belief in the 
 popular theology,—which is commonly called Faith, “ faith 
 in Christ,” and “ faith in God,”—and a compliance with 
 the ritual of the Church. 
 
 This Theology makes man a worm; religion a torment 
 to all but ten in a million; immortality a curse to man¬ 
 kind ; God a devil omnipotent to damn, and His rule in 
 time and eternity the most selfish despotism which the 
 world ever knew. 
 
 This Theology is not always to last: it is in the process 
 of dissolution—there is dry-rot in its limbs. Philosophy 
 
102 
 
 THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 shows there is no such dreadful God; criticism that there 
 is no such atoning sacrifice to appease imaginary wrath, 
 no need of such belief, or of such compliance; conscious¬ 
 ness knows no such human nature as the popular theology 
 proclaims. No, we are all conscious of a nature quite 
 different from that. Yea, 0 Father in Ileaven, Thou hast 
 written of Thyself on the walls of human consciousness, 
 and we feel Thee in our heart, with all Thy Infinite Wis¬ 
 dom, Justice, Love, and Holiness. 
 
 This dark theology must pass away. 
 
 It is at this day in the same condition that Judaism 
 and Paganism were in Pauks time. Then the great priests 
 were Pagans or Jews; the great philosophers, the great 
 philanthropists, were neither Jew nor Pagan. Now the 
 great priests are theological Christians, the great philoso¬ 
 phers far otherwise. The new bud is crowding oil* the 
 old leaf. The great hearts have no confidence in this 
 theology; the great heads have no confidence in it; the 
 great hands have no confidence in it. The social aristo¬ 
 cracy of England seems false to religion. A writer, one of . 
 the leariiedest men in Europe, himself really religious, de¬ 
 clares that since the breaking up of Paganism there has 
 never been such a decline of religion in Europe as at this 
 day. Another not at all bigoted declares that in England 
 the foremost classes of the people,—men of birth and 
 riches,—have no regard for religion. The labouring men, 
 whose daily toil hardly fills their mouths and satisfies 
 their hunger,—they also have small confidence in it. The 
 intellectual aristocracy of France and Germany have 
 mainly turned their faces not only against this theology, 
 but against conscious religion itself. 
 
 Well, how much of religion is there in America ? Ask 
 the twenty-eight thousand ministers : ask the three 
 million, three hundred thousand church-members that 
 question; then let the three million, three hundred thou¬ 
 sand slaves give answer to the question. “ The dark 
 places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty; ” 
 the American pulpit knows it, and defends the cruelty 
 and the darkness of the dark places of the earth. Ask 
 the politician who says there is no Higher Law for the 
 State ; ask the trader who says there is no Higher Law 
 for business, and who wishes to sign off from religion. 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 
 
 103 
 
 each, in his peculiar vocation,—ask them what respect 
 there is for religion in America ! 
 
 Yon and I, my friends, live in an age when mankind 
 has outgrown the popular theology. God be thanked ! 
 we have outgrown its idea of God, its idea of Man, and 
 its idea of Religion. Hence comes the confusion of the 
 times; hence the denial of religion in politics, in trade. 
 We live in an age of transition. The old theology will 
 pass away; depend upon it, it will pass away. Philoso¬ 
 phers have destroyed its philosophical basis, critics have 
 destroyed its historical basis, and it swings in the air at 
 both ends. That must pass away. 
 
 But Religion,—that will not fade out of the human 
 heart: sooner shall yonder sun, which those clouds only 
 hide, fade out of heaven. No ! with every advance of 
 man religion shines brighter and brighter, leading on¬ 
 ward to its perfect day. Out of this chaos of theology, 
 how beautifully comes up the manly and mild and trust¬ 
 ing face of Jesus of Nazareth ! Far off, severed from us 
 by two thousand years of time, and five thousand miles 
 of space, we see him with his beatitudes, his parable of 
 the Good Samaritan, of the Father who went after his 
 prodigal son, having more joy in his heaven over the one 
 sinner that repented than over the ninety and nine that 
 never went astray. How beautifully- comes up that young 
 Nazarene, proclaiming the one religion,—love to the 
 Father, and love to the Son—to Man here on the earth, 
 for mankind is the Son of God ! 
 
 Coming out of the popular theology, I feel as one who 
 has wandered long in some dark, subterranean, mammoth 
 cave, where the sound of running water was thunderous 
 and sad,—lit by uncertain torches, led by wandering 
 guides, where lifeless stones grinned as horrible monsters 
 at him, and he hesitated and stumbled at every step,— 
 where the air was contaminated by the smoke of the 
 torches, and his steps faltered and his heart sank. I feel 
 as one coming out into the glad light of day, where the 
 sky is blue over me, and the sun sheds down its golden 
 light, and the ground is green with grass, and is beauti¬ 
 ful with summer or with autumn flowers, fragrant to 
 every sense. 
 
 God be thanked that we leave the cavern behind us. 
 
THE POPULAR THEOLOOY. 
 
 104 
 
 with its smoky lights, its paths that lead to wandering ; 
 that God^s heaven is over us and His ground is under our 
 feet, Ilis eternity before us, and His Spirit in our spirit. 
 
 “ Oh ye, who pined in dungeons for the sake 
 
 Of Truth which tyrants shadowed with their hate, 
 
 Whose only crime was that ye were awake 
 Too soon, or that your brethren slept too late ; 
 
 Mountainous minds, upon whose top the great 
 Sunrise of knowledge came, long e’er its glance 
 Fell on the foggy sw r amps of fear and ignorance ; 
 
 “ The time shall come when from your heights serene, 
 
 Beyond the grave, ye will look hack and smile, 
 
 To see the plains of earth all growing green, 
 
 Where Science, Art, and Love repeat Heaven’s style, 
 
 And with God’s beauty fill the desert isle, 
 
 ’Till Eden blooms where martyr-fires have burned, 
 
 And to the Lord of life all hearts and minds are turned. 
 
 “ The seeds are planted, and the spring is near ; 
 
 Ages of blight are but a fleeting frost: 
 
 Truth circles into Truth. Each mote is dear 
 To God, no drop of Ocean is e’er lost, 
 
 No leaf for ever dry and tempest-tost. 
 
 Life centres deathless underneath Decay, 
 
 And no true Word or Deed can ever pass away.” 
 
 V. 
 
 OF SPECULATIVE THEISM, REGARDED AS A 
 THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 ARE NOT TWO SPARROWS SOLD FOR A FARTHING ? AND ONE OF THEM 
 
 SHALL NOT FALL ON THE GROUND WITHOUT YOUR FATHER.- 
 
 MATTHEW X. 29 . 
 
 On the last four Sundays I spoke of Atheism, regarded 
 first as a Theory of the Universe, and then as a Principle 
 of Ethics; next of the popular Christian Theology, also 
 regarded first as a Theory of the Universe, and then as a 
 Principle of Ethics. I have spoken of each, as meta¬ 
 physics and as ethics; as theory first, and then as practice. 
 Both subjects were painful to touch, yet needing to be 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 105 
 
 handled at this day. It is never pleasant to point out 
 and expose a false theory of philosophy, or a false system 
 of practice, and I am glad I have passed by that for the 
 present. A good man hates to kill anything,—even 
 snakes and hyaenas. 
 
 I now come to a theme much more pleasant: namely, 
 the Philosophical Idea of God. So I ask your attention 
 to a Sermon of Speculative Theism, considered as a 
 Theory of the Universe ; and next Sunday I hope to speak 
 of Theism considered as a Principle of Practice. If what 
 I have to say this morning be somewhat abstract and 
 metaphysical, and closely joined together, and rather hard 
 to follow, I beg you will remember that this dryness be¬ 
 longs to the nature of the subject, which I shall treat as 
 well as I can, and as plain as I may. 
 
 I use the word Theism, first, as distinguished from 
 Atheism; that is, from the absolute denial of all possible 
 ideas of God. Second, as distinguished from the Popular 
 Theology, which indeed affirms God, but ascribes to Him 
 a finite character, and makes Him a ferocious God. And 
 third, as distinguished from Deism, which affirms a God 
 without the ferocious character of the popular theology, 
 but still starts from the sensational philosophy, abuts in 
 materialism, derives its idea of God solely by induction 
 from the phenomena of material nature, or of human his¬ 
 tory, leaving out of sight the intuition of human nature ; 
 and so gets its idea of God solely from external observa¬ 
 tion, and not at all from consciousness, and thus accord¬ 
 ingly represents God as finite and imperfect. I use the 
 word as distinguished from Atheism, the denial of God ; 
 from the Popular Theology, which affirms a finite feroci¬ 
 ous God ; and from Deism, which affirms a finite God 
 without ferocity. So much for the definition of terms. 
 
 Some of you may perhaps remember the introductory 
 sermon of last year's course, treating of the Infinite Per¬ 
 fection of God. In that discourse I started from human 
 nature, from the facts of consciousness in your heart and 
 in my heart, assuming only the fidelity of the human 
 faculties, their power to ascertain truth in religious 
 matters, as in philosophical and mathematical matters ; 
 and I showed, or think I showed, that those faculties of 
 human nature—the intellectual, the moral, the affectional, 
 
103 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 and the simply religious—in their joint and normal exercise, 
 led to the idea of God as a Being infinitely powerful, 
 infinitely wise, infinitely just, infinitely loving, and infi¬ 
 nitely holy, that is, faithful to Himself. 
 
 To-day I start with that conclusion as a fact. I shall 
 not undertake to prove the actuality of this idea,—the 
 existence of the infinite God; I shall take it for granted. 
 I did not undertake to prove the existence of a God 
 against Atheism; nor the non-existence of the ferocious 
 God against the Popular Theology. At this stage of pro¬ 
 ceeding I shall -assume the existence of the Infinite God, 
 relying for proof on what has been said so often before, 
 and still more, on what is felt in your consciousness, 
 without my saying anything. Only for clearness of con¬ 
 ception, let me state some of the most important matters 
 connected with the idea of God. 
 
 I. There must be many qualities of God not at all 
 known to men, some of them not at all knowable by us ; 
 because we have not the faculties to know them by. Man's 
 consciousness of God and God's consciousness of Himself 
 must differ immeasurably. God's ideas of Himself must 
 differ as much from our idea of Him, as the constellation 
 called the Great Bear differs from one of the beasts in the 
 public den at Berne. For no man can ever have an ex¬ 
 haustive conception of God,—one I mean which uses up 
 and comprises the whole of God. We have scarcely 
 an exhaustive conception of anything. Certain properties 
 and forces of things we know; the substance of things is 
 almost, if not quite, beyond our ken. But we may have 
 such an idea of God as, though incomplete, is perfectly 
 true, and comprises no quality which is not also a quality 
 of God. Then our idea of God is true as far as it goes, 
 only it does not describe the whole of God. To illustrate 
 this,—a thimble cannot contain all the water in the At¬ 
 lantic Ocean at once, but it may be brimful of water from 
 the Atlantic Ocean; and it may contain nothing but water 
 from the Atlantic Ocean. So our idea of God, though 
 not containing the whole of Him, may yet comprise no 
 quality which is not a quality of God, and may omit none 
 which it is needful for our welfare that we should know. 
 In the self-consciousness of God subject and object are the 
 same, and He must know all His own Infinite Nature. But 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 107 
 
 in our consciousness of God the limitations of the finite 
 subject make it impossible that we should comprehend 
 God as He is conscious of Himself. It is enough for us to 
 know of the Infinite what is knowable to finite man. 
 
 With qualities not knowable to us I have nothing to do. 
 I shall not undertake to discuss the psychology and me¬ 
 taphysics of God. The metaphysics of man are quite 
 hard enough for me to grapple with and understand. 
 
 II. Then as a next thing, God must be different in 
 kind from what I call the Universe ; that is, from Nature, 
 the world of Matter, and from Spirit, the world of Man. 
 They are finite. He infinite ; they dependent. He self-sub¬ 
 sisting ; they variable, He unchanging. God must include 
 both, matter and spirit. 
 
 There are two classes of philosophers often called 
 Atheists ; but better, and perhaps justly, called Pantheists. 
 
 One of these says, there are only material things in 
 existence/'’ resolving all into matter; cc The sum-total of 
 these material things is God.” That is material Pan¬ 
 theism. If I mistake not, M. Comte of Paris, and the 
 anonymous author of the “ Vestiges of the Natural History 
 of Creation/'’ with their numerous coadjutors, belong to 
 that class. 
 
 The other class admits the existence of spirit, sometimes 
 resolves everything into spirit, and says, “ the sum total 
 of finite spirit, that is God.” These are spiritual Pan¬ 
 theists. Several of the German philosophers, if I under¬ 
 stand them, are of that stamp. 
 
 One difficulty with both of these classes is this : Their 
 idea of God is only the idea of the world of Nature and of 
 Spirit, as it is to-day ; and as the world of Nature and of 
 Spirit will be fairer and wiser a thousand years hence than 
 it is now, so, according to them, God will be fairer and 
 wiser a thousand years hence than He is now. Thus they 
 give you a variable God, who learns by experience, and 
 who grows with the growth and strengthens with the 
 strength of the universe itself. According to them, when 
 there was no vegetation in the world of matter, God knew 
 nothing of a plant; no more than the stones on the earth. 
 When the animal came, when man came, God was wiser, 
 and He advances with the advance of man. When Jesus 
 came, He was a better God; He was a wiser God, after 
 
108 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 Newton and La Place; and was more a philosophical 
 Being, after those pantheistic philosophers had taught 
 Him the way to be so : for their God knows nothing until 
 it is either a fact of observation in finite Nature—in the 
 material world,—or else a fact of consciousness in finite 
 Spirit—in some man ; He knows nothing till it is shown 
 Him. That is a fatal error with Hegel and his followers 
 in England and America. 
 
 Mr Babbage, a most ingenious Englishman, invented 
 a calculating engine. He builded wiser than he knew ; 
 for by and by he found that his engine calculated conclu¬ 
 sions which had never entered into the thought of Mr 
 Babbage himself. The mathematical engine outciphered 
 its inventor. And these men represent God as being in 
 just that predicament: the world is constantly revealing 
 things unknown before, and which God had not conceived 
 of. As there is a Progressive Development of the powers 
 of the Universe as a whole, and of each man, so there is a 
 Progressive Development of God. He is therefore not so 
 much a Being, as a Becoming. 
 
 This idea of an Improvable and Progressive Deity is 
 not wholly a new thing. The doctrine was obscurely 
 held by some of the ancient philosophers in the time of 
 Plato. 
 
 If God be Infinite, then he must be immanent, per¬ 
 fectly and totally present, in Nature and in Spirit. Thus 
 there is no point of space, no atom of matter, but God is 
 there; no point of spirit, and no atom of soul, but God is 
 there. And yet finite matter and finite spirit do not ex¬ 
 haust God. He transcends the world of matter and of 
 spirit; and in virtue of that transcendence continually 
 makes the world of matter fairer, and the world of spirit 
 wiser. So there is really a progress in the Manifestation 
 of God, not a progress in God the manifesting. In thought 
 you may annihilate the world of matter and of man ; but 
 you do not thereby in thought annihilate the infinite God, 
 or subtract anything from the Existence of God. In 
 thought you may double the world of matter and of man; 
 but in so doing you do not in thought double the Being 
 of the Infinite God ; that remains the same as before. 
 
 That is what I mean when I say that God is infinite 
 and transcends matter and spirit, and is different in kind 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 109 
 
 from tlie finite universe. This is the great point in 
 which I differ most widely from those philosophers. I 
 find no fault with them; I differ from their conclusion. 
 
 III. As a third thing, the Infinite God must have all 
 the Qualities of a perfect and complete Being; must be 
 complete in the qualities of a perfect being, perfect in the 
 qualities of a complete one. To state that by analysis 
 which I have just stated by synthesis: He must have 
 the perfection of Being, self-existence; the perfection 
 of Power, almightiness; the perfection of Mind, all- 
 knowingness ; the perfection of Conscience, all-righteous¬ 
 ness; of Affection, all-lovingness; of Soul, all-holiness, 
 perfect self-fidelity. Hence, as the result of all these : 
 He must have the perfection of Will, absolute freedom. 
 I mean * to say, according to this idea of God, there 
 must be no limitation to His existence. His power, His 
 wisdom, His justice, His love, His holiness, and His 
 freedom; none from any outward cause, or any inward 
 cause whatsoever. The classic, or Greek and Roman, 
 Idea of God, represented Him as finite, limited subjectively 
 by elements of His own character, objectively limited by 
 the elements of the material world; the popular theolo¬ 
 gical idea in fact represents Him as finite, limited sub¬ 
 jectively by selfishness, wrath, and various evil passions, 
 objectively by elements in the world of men which con¬ 
 tinually prove refractory, and turn out as he did not 
 intend. In this matter of the Infinity of God, I differ 
 from the popular theology, as well as from the common 
 scheme of philosophy. 
 
 So much for the Idea of God considered as Infinite; so 
 much for its diversity from the common schemes. 
 
 Now look at this philosophical Theism, with its Idea of 
 the Infinite God, as a Theory of the Universe. Let me 
 divide the universe into two great parts. One I will call 
 the World of Matter, and the other the World of Spirit. 
 By the world of matter I mean everything, except the 
 Deity, known to us that is not man; and by the world of 
 spirit I mean what is man,—both man in his material 
 substance, and in his spiritual substance. Let me say a 
 word of each. For shortness* sake, I will call the world 
 of matter Nature. I begin with this, as it is the least 
 difficult. 
 
110 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 In Nature God must be both a perfect Cause, and a 
 perfect Providence. 
 
 I. Of God as perfect Cause. Creation itself, the non¬ 
 existent coming into existence, is something unintelligible 
 to us. But this we know, that the Infinite God must be 
 a perfect Creator, the sole and undisturbed author of all 
 that is in Nature. So there must be a complete and per¬ 
 fect harmony and concord between God and the Nature 
 which He creates, God and His works must be at one; 
 and Nature, so far as it goes, must represent the Will 
 and Purpose of God, and nothing but the will and purpose 
 of God. So, there can be nothing in Nature which God 
 did not put in Nature from Himself. 
 
 Well, God must have made Nature first, from a perfect 
 Motive; next, of perfect Material; third, for a perfect 
 Purpose or end; fourth, as perfect Means to achieve that 
 purpose. That is—the motive for creation, the purpose 
 of creation, must be in perfect harmony with the infinity 
 of God; in harmony with His infinite power, wisdom, 
 justice, love, and holiness : the material of Nature, and 
 the means therein, with the constant modes of operation 
 thereof—the Laws of Nature, must be perfectly adequate 
 to the perfect purpose, and so must be in complete har¬ 
 mony with the Infinite God; with His infinite power, 
 infinite wisdom, justice, love, and holiness. That is very 
 plain, following unavoidably from the Idea of God as 
 Infinite. 
 
 Now a perfect Motive for creation,—what will that be ? 
 It must be absolute Love producing a desire to bless 
 everything which He creates; that is, a desire to confer 
 such a form and degree of welfare on each thing which 
 He makes as is perfectly consistent with the character 
 and nature of that thing made; that is, with its highest 
 form and degree of welfare. Absolute Love is a perfect 
 motive. 
 
 A perfect Purpose or end of creation is the achieve¬ 
 ment of that bliss; not the achievement thereof to-day, 
 but ultimately. Perfect Material and Means are those 
 which perfectly achieve that purpose; not to-day, or 
 when I will, or when the thing created wills, but when 
 the infinite wisdom and love of God wills. 
 
 The Infinite God must create all from a perfect motive. 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 Ill 
 
 for a perfect purpose, of perfect material, as perfect- 
 means ; for you cannot conceive of a God infinitely power¬ 
 ful, wise, just, loving, and lioly, creating anything from 
 an evil motive, for an evil purpose, from evil material, or 
 as evil means. No more can you conceive of the Infinite 
 God creating anything from an imperfect motive, for an 
 imperfect purpose, of imperfect material, or as imperfect 
 means. Each of these suppositions is wholly inconsistent 
 with the idea of the Infinite God; for He can have only 
 perfect motives, perfect purposes, perfect material, and 
 perfect means to create out of, and to create by. This be¬ 
 ing so, you see that the selfishness and destructiveness as¬ 
 cribed to God in the popular theology are at once struck 
 out of existence. For such selfishness and destructive¬ 
 ness are absolutely impossible to the Infinite God. 
 
 II. Next, of God as perfect Providence. Creation and 
 Providence are but modifications of the same function. 
 Creation is momentary providence; providence, perpetual 
 creation: one is described by a point; the other by a 
 line. Now God is just as much present in a blade of 
 grass, or an atom of mahogany, this day and in every 
 moment of its existence, as he was at the instant of its 
 creation. Men say, “When God created matter he was 
 present therein.” Very true ! but He is just as present 
 therein, with all His powers, and just as active with all 
 His perfections, at every moment while that matter exists, 
 as He was when it was first created. Men tell us, when 
 they read the Bible, “ How grand it must have been to 
 have stood in the presence "of God when Moses miracu¬ 
 lously smote the rock, which gushed with miraculous 
 water.” But every drop of water, which falls from my 
 roof in a shower, or from my finger, thus, as I lift it in 
 this cup,—has as much the presence of God in it as when, 
 in Biblical phrase, “the morning stars sang together, 
 and the Sons of God shouted for joy,” at the creatio'n of 
 water itself. It cannot be created without God; it can¬ 
 not subsist without God. 
 
 Here, too, in His Providence, the motive, the end, the 
 material and means, must be infinitely perfect. Let me 
 develope this a moment. 
 
 God at the creation must have known the action and 
 history of each thing which He called into being just as 
 
112 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 well as He knows it now; for God's knowledge is not a 
 becoming wiser by experience, but a being wise by nature. 
 The Infinite God must know every movement of every 
 particle of matter. We generally assent to that in the 
 gross, and reject it in the detail. Let me give an ex¬ 
 ample. 
 
 All the powers, and consequently all the action, move¬ 
 ments, and history of the whole Universe of matter, 
 whereof this solar system is a part, a single 
 
 u Branch of Stars we see, 
 
 Hung in the golden galaxy ; ” 
 
 & 
 
 all the powers, actions, movements, and history of the 
 solar system itself, of its primaries and secondaries, must 
 have been completely and perfectly known to God before 
 the universe, or any single “ branch of stars/' had its ex¬ 
 istence. So the powers and consequent history and move¬ 
 ment of every particular thing on each of these orbs must 
 have been known. The action and history of the mineral 
 matter on the earth in its inorganic form, in the form of 
 crystal, liquid, gas;—the action and history of vegetable 
 matter in the fucus, the lichen, and the tree;—and so of 
 animal matter, in the mollusk, the eagle, and the elephant, 
 —all must have been completely and perfectly known by 
 God before their creation; eternally known to him. The 
 powers, and so the history, of each atom in Nature must 
 have been as thoroughly known to the Mind of the Uni¬ 
 verse a million million years ago, as at this day; in their 
 cause as well as by their effects. 
 
 For example, God must have known, at the moment of 
 creation, the present position of this crescent moon which 
 beautifies the early evening hour; and He must have 
 known, too, the history of these molecules of carbon that 
 make up the cotton thread which binds the sheets of this 
 sermon together. 
 
 To say it short, the statics and dynamics of the uni¬ 
 verse, and of each atom thereof, must have been eternally 
 and thoroughly known to God. And each atom with its 
 statical and dynamical powers,—the mineral, vegetable, 
 and animal forces of the universe,—must have been created 
 by Him, from perfect motives, of perfect material, for a 
 perfect purpose, and as perfect means; they must be con- 
 
X 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 113 
 
 tinually sustained by Him, and He must be just as present 
 and just as active in each moment of the existence of any 
 one of these things as at the creation thereof, or at the 
 creation of the all of things. So, then, each of these 
 must have been created with a perfect knowledge of its 
 powers, actions, movements, and history, and created 
 from love as motive, for ultimate good as purpose, of 
 materials proportionate to the motive, and so adequate to 
 the end, and accordingly provided with the means of ac¬ 
 complishing that purpose; for the infinite perfection of 
 God would allow no absolute evil, no absolute imperfec¬ 
 tion, in His motive, or His material, in His purpose, or His 
 means. If there were any such absolute evil or imperfec¬ 
 tion in the created, it could only have come from an 
 absolute evil or imperfection in the Creator; that is, from 
 a lack of infinite power, wisdom, justice, or love—because 
 God has not love enough to wish all things well; or jus¬ 
 tice enough to will them well; or wisdom enough to con¬ 
 trive them well; or power enough to make them well. 
 
 Each thing which God has made has a Eight to be 
 created from perfect motives, for a perfect purpose, from 
 perfect material, and as perfect means; and a right, also, 
 to be perfectly provided for. I know, to some men it 
 will sound irreverent to speak of the Eight of the created 
 in relation to the Creator, and of the consequent Duty 
 and Obligation of the Creator in relation to the created. 
 But the Infinite God is infinitely just, and it is with the 
 highest reverence that I ask, “ Shall not the God of all 
 the earth do right ? ” It is the highest reverence for the 
 Creator to say that “ He gives His creatures a Eight to 
 Him, to Him as infinite Cause, to Him as infinite Provi¬ 
 dence ; " and I count it impious to say that God has a 
 right to create even a worm from imperfect motives, for 
 an imperfect purpose, of imperfect material, as imperfect 
 means. This right of the creature depends on the nature 
 of the thing, on its quality as a creation of the infinite 
 God; not on the quantity of being it has received from 
 Him. So of course it is equal in all; the same in the 
 smallest “ motes that people the sunbeams/' and the 
 greatest man; all have a birthright to the perfect Provi¬ 
 dence of the Infinite God; an unalienable right to pro¬ 
 tection by His infinite power, wisdom, justice, love, and 
 vol. xi.— Theism , §c. 8 
 
114 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 holiness. This lien on the Infinity of God vests in the 
 substance of their finite nature, and is not to be voided 
 by any accident of their history, for that accident must 
 have been known and provided for as one of the conse¬ 
 quences of their powers. Each thing has the infinite 
 perfection of God as guarantee to that right. God is 
 security for the universe, and His hand is indorsed on 
 every great and little thing which He has made. Then, 
 if I am sure of God and His infinity, I am sure beforehand 
 of the ultimate welfare of everything which God has 
 made, for the Infinite Father is the pledge and collateral 
 security, the indorser therefor. 
 
 We cannot comprehend the details of this Providence, 
 more than of creating, nor fully understand the mode of 
 attaining the end; the mode of terminating, originating, 
 and sustaining are equally unintelligible to us; but the 
 fact we know from the idea of God as Infinite. As we 
 cannot with a Gunter’s chain measure the distance be¬ 
 tween the sun and the earth, but as by calculation, start¬ 
 ing from facts of internal consciousness and external 
 observation, we can measure it with greater proportionate 
 exactness than a carpenter could measure the desk under 
 my hand :—so we cannot understand God’s mode of 
 operation as Cause or Providence, more than an Indian 
 baby, newly born, in Shawneetown, could understand 
 the astronomer’s mode of operation in calculating the dis¬ 
 tance between the earth and the sun; but as we have this 
 idea of God, though we know not the mode of operation, 
 the middle terms which intervene betwixt the purpose 
 and the achievement, we are yet sure of the fact that the 
 motive, purpose, material, and means are all proportionate 
 to the nature of the Creator, and adequate for the welfare 
 of the created. 
 
 In Nature God is the only Cause, the only Providence, 
 the only Power; the law of Nature,—that is, the constant 
 mode of action of the forces of the material world—repre¬ 
 sents the modes of action of God Himself, His thought 
 made visible ; and as He is infinite, unchangeably perfect, 
 and perfectly unchangeable. His mode of action is there¬ 
 fore constant and universal, so that there can be no such 
 thing as a violation of God’s constant mode of action; for 
 there is no power to violate it except God Himself, and 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 115 
 
 tlie infinitely perfect God could not violate His own per¬ 
 fect modes of action. And accordingly there can be no 
 chance, no evil, no imperfection, in motive or purpose, in 
 material or means, or in the modes of action thereof. 
 Everywhere is calculated order, nowhere chance and con¬ 
 fusion ; everywhere regular, constant modes of action of 
 the forces in the material world, unvarying and eternal 
 laws, nowhere is there an extemporaneous miracle. Men 
 have their precarious makeshifts; the Infinite has no 
 tricks and subterfuges,—not a Whim in God, and so not a 
 Miracle in Nature. Seeming chance is real direction; 
 what looks like evil in Nature is real good. The sparrow 
 that falls to-day does not fall to ruin, but to ultimate 
 welfare. Though we know not the mode of operation, 
 there must be another world for the sparrow as for man. 
 
 So much for this Theism as a Theory of the World of 
 Matter. Now a word for it as a Theory of the World of 
 Spirit, of the World of Man. This shall include man so 
 far as he is matter; and so far as he is matter and some¬ 
 thing more. 
 
 Look at this first in the most general way, in relation 
 to Human Nature,—to Mankind as a whole; then I will 
 come down to particulars. Here the same thing is to be 
 said as of Nature; namely, the Infinite God must be a 
 perfect Cause thereof, and have created the world of man 
 from perfect motives, for a perfect purpose, of perfect 
 material, as perfect means. God has no other motive, 
 purpose, material, or means. The perfect motive must 
 be Absolute Love—producing the desire to bless the 
 world of man, that is, the desire to confer thereon a form 
 and degree of welfare which is perfectly consistent with 
 the entire nature of man. The perfect purpose must be 
 the attainment of that bliss; the ultimate attainment not 
 to-day, or when man wills, but when the Infinite God 
 wills. Perfect material is that which is capable of this 
 welfare; and perfect means are such as achieve it. 
 
 So much for God considered as a perfect Cause in the 
 world of man. I need not here further repeat what I just 
 said of creation in the world of matter. 
 
 But God must be also perfect Providence for the 
 world of man; He must be perpetually present therein, 
 in each portion thereof. Men think that God was pre- 
 
116 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 sent in some moment of time., at tlie creation of mankind. 
 Very true ! but in each moment of mankind’s existence 
 since, God is just as present; for providence is a con¬ 
 tinuous line of creations, and God is as much present, 
 and as much active, at every point of that line as at the 
 beginning or end thereof. I know men speak of yielding 
 up the spirit and going out of the body, going to God. 
 Is not God about, within, and around us, while we are in 
 the body, just as much as when we shake off the known 
 and enter on that untried being ? 
 
 God must have known at the creation all the action 
 
 and history of the world of man as well as of Nature. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that ten thousand years ago God 
 
 knew less of human history than He knows to-day. 
 
 That would be to make God imperfect in His wisdom, 
 
 growing wiser by experience. Napoleon’s coup cV etat 
 
 was a surprise to mankind ten months ago. Do you 
 
 think it was an astonishment to God ten months agro ? 
 
 . . o 
 
 was it not infinitely known hundreds of millions of years 
 ago ; eternally known ? It must have been so. 
 
 I know the question is here more complicated than in 
 Nature, for in Nature there is only one force, the direct 
 statical and dynamical action of matter; and accordingly 
 it is easy to calculate the action and result of mechanical, 
 vegetable, electrical, and vital forces. But in the world of 
 man there is a certain amount of freedom, which seems 
 to make the question difficult. In that part of the world 
 of Nature not endowed with animal life, there is no mar¬ 
 gin of oscillation; and you may know just where the 
 moon will be to-night, and where it will be a thousand 
 years hence. The constant forces, with their compensa¬ 
 tions, may all be known; and so every nutation of the 
 moon is calculable with entire certainty. The modes 
 of action there are as little variable as the maxims of 
 geometry. The moon’s node is an invariable consequent 
 of material necessity. When a star with fiery hair came 
 splendouring through the night, it filled mediaeval astrono¬ 
 mers with amazement; and celibate priests, divorced 
 from Nature, shook with superstitious fear as it wrote its 
 hieroglyphic of God over Byzantium or Borne; was God 
 astonished at His wandering and hairy star ? 
 
 In the world of animals there is a small margin of 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 117 
 
 oscillation; but you are pretty sure to know wkat tke 
 animals will do, that tke beaver will build his dam and 
 the wren her nest just as their fathers built; that every 
 bee next summer will make her six-sided cell with the 
 same precision and geometric economy of material and 
 space wherewith her ancestors wrought ten thousand 
 years ago, solving the problem of isoperimetrical figures. 
 
 But man has a certain amount of freedom; a larger 
 margin of oscillation, wherein he vibrates from side to 
 side. The nod of Lord Burleigh is a variable contingent 
 of human caprice. Hence it is thought that God could 
 not foreknow the oscillations of caprice in the human race, 
 in the Adamitic Cain of ancient poetry, or the Napoleonic 
 Cain of contemporaneous history, till after they took 
 place. But that conclusion comes only from putting our 
 limitations on God. It is difficult for the astronomer’s 
 little boy to measure the cradle he sleeps in, or to tell 
 what time it is by the nursery clock; but the astronomer 
 can measure the vast orbit of Leverrier’s star before see¬ 
 ing it, and correct his nursery clock by the great dial 
 hung up in heaven itself: yet the difference between 
 the mind of the astronomer’s boy and the mind of the 
 astronomer is nothing compared to the odds between 
 finite intellect and the infinite understanding of God. So 
 though the greater complication makes it more difficult 
 for you and me to understand the consciousness of free 
 men, whose feelings, thoughts, and consequent actions 
 are such manifold contingents, it is not at all more difficult 
 for God. 
 
 Before the creation the Infinite God, as perfect Cause 
 and Providence, must have known all the powers and 
 consequent actions, movements, and history of the col¬ 
 lective world of men, and each individual thereof. For, 
 either man has no freedom at all, or he has some freedom 
 of will. 
 
 In the first case, if he has no freedom, no margin of 
 oscillation, the fore-knowableness of his actions does not 
 differ from that of the world of matter; and the nutation 
 of the moon and the nod of Lord Burleigh are equally 
 the invariable consequent of material or human necessity. 
 Then God is the only force in the human world, and of 
 course, without difficulty, knows all its action, for a 
 
118 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 knowledge of the world is only part of His consciousness 
 of Himself; the treachery of Judas and the faithfulness 
 of Jesus are then but facts of the divine self-conscious¬ 
 ness. 
 
 If there be freedom, then God, as the perfect Cause of 
 man’s freedom of will, must have perfectly understood 
 the powers of that freedom; and understanding perfectly 
 the powers. He knew perfectly all the actions, movements, 
 and history thereof, at the moment of creation as well as 
 to-day. The perfect Cause must know the consequence 
 of His perfect creation; and knowing the cause and the 
 effects thereof, as perfect Providence, and working from 
 a perfect motive, for a perfect purpose, with perfect ma¬ 
 terial and by perfect means, he must so arrange all things, 
 that the material shall be capable of ultimate welfare; 
 and must use means proportionate to the nature and 
 adequate to the purpose. So the quantity of human 
 oscillation with all the consequences thereof must of 
 course be perfectly known to God before the creation as 
 well as after the special events come to pass; for to God 
 contingents of caprice and consequents of necessity must 
 be equally clear, both before and after the event. Little 
 boys, under a capricious schoolmaster, learn the constants 
 of his anger’s ebb or flow; 
 
 “ Full well the boding tremblers learn to trace 
 The day’s disaster in his morning face.” 
 
 And do you think the infinite God is astonished at revo¬ 
 lutions in Italy, or the discovery of ether ? because a 
 hya3na, stealthily and at night, kills a girl in an Abys¬ 
 sinian town, or a kidnapper, as stealthily and also by 
 night, destroys a man in Boston ? The liyama crouching 
 in his den, the kidnapper lurking in his office, are both 
 known to God. 
 
 Though human caprice and freedom be a contingent 
 force, yet God knows human caprice when He makes it, 
 knows exactly the amount of that contingent force, all its 
 actions, movements, and history, and what it will bring 
 about. And as He is an infinitely wise, just, and loving 
 Cause and Providence, so there can be no absolute evil 
 or imperfection in the world of man, more than in the 
 world of matter, or in God Himself. 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 119 
 
 So much for this Theism as a Theory of the World of 
 Man as a Whole, in its most general form. 
 
 Now see the concrete application thereof in the General 
 Human Life—in the life of nations. In creating mankind 
 God must have known there would come the great races 
 of men,—Ethiopian, Malay, Tartar, American, Caucasian. 
 He must have known there would come such families of 
 the Caucasian as the Slavic, Classic, Celtic, Teutonic; 
 such stocks of the Teutonic as the Scandinavian, the 
 German, the Saxon; of the Saxon such nations as Eng¬ 
 land and America; in their history such events as the 
 American Revolution, the Mexican War, and the like. I 
 mean that God as perfect Cause must have perfectly 
 known all these things from eternity as well as now. 
 History is a surprise to us, not to God. The breaking 
 out of the Mexican War, the capture of Mexico, the 
 failure or success of a general, might be an astonishment 
 to men; God was not wiser afterwards than before. As 
 perfect Cause and Providence, He must have arranged all 
 things so that mankind as a whole shall attain that bliss 
 which His perfect motive and perfect purpose require, 
 which is indispensable to His perfect material and His 
 perfect means. All the powers and consequent actions, 
 movements, and history of mankind must therefore have 
 been known and provided for. The savage, the barbarous, 
 the half-civilized, and the civilized—the feudal and com¬ 
 mercial periods,—and others yet in store, must have been 
 known and provided for. The whole religious history of 
 man. Atheism, Fetichispa, Polytheism, Monotheism,—the 
 Monotheism of the Hebrews and of the Christians,— 
 must have been known. The rise, decline, and fall of 
 Egypt, India, Persia, Judea, Greece, Rome, and Byzan¬ 
 tium, must have been as well understood by God at crea¬ 
 tion as now; and as perfect Providence He must have 
 provided for the rise, decline, and fall thereof, so that 
 they should be steps forward, towards ultimate bliss, and 
 not from it. He must have given man his pow r er of free¬ 
 will as all other powers, from a perfect motive, for a per¬ 
 fect purpose, of perfect material, and as perfect means; 
 and of course it must achieve that purpose for mankind 
 as a whole, for those great races,—Ethiopian, Malay, 
 Tartar, American, Caucasian; for those families,—Slavic, 
 
120 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 Classic, Celtic, Teutonic ; for those tribes,—Scandinavian, 
 German, Saxon; for every nation,—England, America. 
 The great events of their history,—the American Revolu¬ 
 tion, the Mexican War,—and every other, must be so 
 overruled and balanced that they shall contribute to the 
 achievement of the purpose of God. And what is true 
 of the whole must be true of each; God must be perfect 
 Providence for one as well as for another, and so arrange 
 these that they all shall come to ultimate bliss. 
 
 Therefore as you look on the sad aspect of the world 
 at present,—on Italy, ridden by the Pope and priest; on 
 Austria, Hungary, Germany, the spark of freedom trodden 
 out by the imperial or royal hoof; on France, crushed by 
 her own armies at the command of a cunning voluptuary; 
 on Ireland, trodden down by the capitalists of Britain; 
 on the American slave, manacled by State and Church,— 
 you know, first, that God foresaw all this at the creation, 
 as a consequence of the forces which He put into human 
 nature; next, you know that He provides for it all, so 
 that it shall not interfere with the ultimate bliss of the 
 Italian, Pope-ridden and priest-ridden; of the Austrian, 
 Hungarian, German, from whose heart the imperial or 
 royal hoof has trod the spark of liberty; of the French¬ 
 man, the victim of a voluptuous tyrant; of the Irishman, 
 trodden down by the British capitalist; and of the 
 American slave, fettered by the American Church and 
 manacled by the American State. God made the world 
 in such a manner that these partial evils would take 
 place; and they take place with His infinite knowledge, 
 and under His infinite Providence. So when we see 
 these evils, we know that though immense they are 
 partial evils compensated by constants somewhere, and 
 provided for in the infinite engineering of God, so that 
 they shall be the cause of some ultimate good. For man¬ 
 kind has a Right to be perfectly created; each race, 
 family, tribe, nation, has a Right to be created from per¬ 
 fect motives for a perfect purpose, of perfect material, 
 and with the means to achieve that purpose; not at the 
 time when Russia and Montenegro will, or when you and 
 I will, but when infinite wisdom, justice, love, knows that 
 it is best. And sad as the world looks, God knew it all, 
 provided for it all; and its welfare, its ultimate triumph 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 121 
 
 is insured at the office of the Infinite God. His hand 
 is indorsed on each race, each family, each tribe, each 
 nation of mankind. Yon cannot suppose—as writers of 
 the Old Testament do—that the affairs of the world look 
 desperate to God, and he repents having made mankind, 
 or any fraction of the human race. 
 
 See this Theism in its application to Individual Human 
 Life ; your life and mine. God is perfect Cause and per¬ 
 fect Providence for me and you. Before the creation He 
 knew everything that I shall do, everything that I shall 
 suffer, everything that I shall be; provided for it all, so 
 that absolute bliss must be the welfare of each of us at 
 last. The evils—that is, the suffering in mind, body, and 
 estate, the imperfect bliss, my failing to attain the out¬ 
 ward or inward condition of this welfare,—these must 
 come either from my nature, my human nature as man, 
 my individual nature as the son of John and Hannah; or 
 from my circumstances that are about me; or, as a third 
 thing, from the joint action of these two. 
 
 God as perfect Cause must have known my nature, my 
 circumstances, the effect of their joint action; as perfect 
 Providence, he must have arranged things so that nature 
 and circumstances shall work out for me, and for every¬ 
 body, all this ultimate bliss which the perfect motive 
 can desire as a perfect purpose, which perfect materials 
 can achieve as perfect means. My individual suffering, 
 error, sin, must have been equally foreseen, fore-cared 
 for, and used in the great house-keeping of the Eternal 
 Mother as a means to accomplish the purpose of ultimate 
 welfare. 
 
 This must be true of Jesus of Nazareth crucified, and 
 of Judas Iscariot who betrayed him to the cross; of the 
 St Domingo hero who rotted in his dungeon, and of 
 Napoleon the Great, who locked his dungeon door—him¬ 
 self one day to be jailed on a rock, with Ocean mounting 
 guard over this Prometheus of historic times; of theistic 
 John Huss who blazed in his fire, and of the Twenty- 
 third John, the perjured pope of Pome, who lit that fire 
 five hundred miles from home. 
 
 As at the creation of the world of matter God knew 
 where the solar system would be in space, where the 
 molecules of carbon which form the tie that binds my 
 
122 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 sermon together, would be on this seventeenth of Octo¬ 
 ber, eighteen hundred and fifty-two years after the 
 cradling of Jesus of Nazareth; — as He arranged the 
 universe so that the solar system and these molecules of 
 carbon should harmonize together,—as He knew of the 
 rise, decline, and fall of states, and arranged all these 
 things so as to harmonize with the march of man to¬ 
 wards greater bliss ; so He must have known where this 
 little atom of spirit which I call Me would be this day,— 
 what thoughts, feelings, will, and suffering I should have, 
 and He must make all these harmonize with my march 
 towards that ultimate bliss, which my finite human nature 
 needs to take, and which His infinite divine nature needs 
 to give. 
 
 God is responsible for His own creation, His world of 
 matter, and His world of man; for mankind in general; 
 for you and me. God^s work is all warranted. Each 
 man has a right to perfect creation,—creation from per¬ 
 fect motives, of perfect material, as perfect means for a 
 perfect purpose. God has no other purpose, no other 
 means, no other material, no other motive. He is the 
 infinite power, wisdom, justice, love, and is security for 
 the ultimate welfare of the sparrow that falls; for man¬ 
 kind groping its dim and perilous way; for you and me 
 darkly feeling our way along, often falling into pain, 
 want, misery, and sin. God as Cause, and God as Provi¬ 
 dence, lias still means to bring us back and lead us home. 
 I have a natural, unalienable Right to the Providence 
 of the Infinite God; this Providence is the Duty of God, 
 inseparable from His Infinity. If I am sure that God 
 is infinite, then all else that is good I am sure of, for 
 everything which God makes is stamped by His hand with 
 an unalienable Right to Him as infinite Cause and infinite 
 Providence. 
 
 As God was present at the creation of matter and of 
 mankind, present with all His infinite perfection, and 
 active therewith,—so is He present and active with me to¬ 
 day with all His infinite perfections; then as Cause, so 
 now as Providence. And do you think the universe will 
 fail of its purpose with Infinite God as its Providence and 
 its Cause ? Do you think any nation, any single human 
 soul, can ever fail of achieving this ultimate bliss, with 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 123 
 
 Infinite God as its Cause and Infinite God as its Provi¬ 
 dence ? Why, so long as God is God it is impossible 
 that His motive and purpose should fail to design good 
 for all and each—or His material and means fail to achieve 
 that ultimate good. 
 
 Well, since these things are so, how beautiful appears 
 the Material World ! There is no fortuitous concourse 
 of atoms, which the atheist talks of; there is no uni¬ 
 verse of selfishness, no grim despot who grinds the world 
 under his heels and then spurns it off to hell, as the 
 popular theology scares us withal. Everything is a 
 thought of Infinite God, and in studying the movements 
 of the solar system, or the composition of an ultimate 
 cell arrested in a crystal, developed in a plant; in tracing 
 the grains of phosphorus in the brain of man; or in 
 studying the atoms which compose the fusil-oil in a drop 
 of ether, or the powers and action thereof,—I am study¬ 
 ing the Thought of the Infinite God. The Universe is 
 His Scripture; Nature the prose, and Man the poetry of 
 God. The world is a volume holier than the Bible, old 
 as creation. What history, what psalms, what prophecy 
 therein ! what canticles of love to beast and man ! not 
 the “ Wisdom of Solomon as in this Apocrypha, but 
 the Wisdom of God, written out in the great Canon of 
 the Universe. 
 
 Then, when I see the suffering of animals,—the father- 
 alligator eating up his sons and daughters, and the 
 Mother-alligator seeking to keep them from his jaws,— 
 when I see the sparrow falling at a dandy^s shot, I know 
 that these things have been provided for by the God of 
 the alligator and the sparrow, and that the universe is 
 lodged as collateral security to insure bliss to every 
 sparrow that falls. 
 
 From this point of view how beautiful appears the 
 World of Man ! When I look on the whole history of 
 man,—man as a savage, as a barbarian, as half-civilized, 
 or as civilized,—feudal or commercial—fighting with all 
 the forces which chemistry and mechanical science can 
 offer, and suffering from want, war, ignorance, from sin 
 in all its thousand forms,—froni despotic oppression in 
 Russia, democratic oppression in America; when I see 
 the tyranny of the feudal baron in other times, with his 
 
124 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 acres and his armies, of the feudal capitalist now-a-days, 
 —the commercial baron, with notes at cent, per cent.; 
 when I see the hyaena of the desert stealing his prey in 
 an Abyssinian town, and the hyaena of the city kidnap¬ 
 ping a man in Boston,—when I see all this, I say the 
 thing is not hopeless. 0 no ! it is hopeful. God knew 
 it all at the beginning, as perfect Cause ; cared for it all, 
 as perfect Providence, with perfect motive, purpose, 
 material, means—will achieve at last ultimate welfare for 
 the oppressor and the oppressed. 
 
 I see the individual suffering, from want, ignorance, 
 and oppression; the public woe which blackens the 
 countenance of men, the sorrow which with private tooth 
 gnaws the heart of African Ellen or William, the sin 
 which puts out the eyes of Caucasian Cain or George. 
 Can I fear ? 0 no ! though the worm of sorrow bore 
 
 into my own heart, I cannot fear. The Infinite God with 
 infinite power, wisdom, justice, holiness, and love, knew 
 it all, and made the nature of Ellen and William, of Cain 
 and George, and controls their circumstances, so that by 
 their action and the action of the world of man and the 
 world of matter, the perfect motive and the perfect means 
 shall achieve the perfect purpose of the infinite loving¬ 
 kindness of God. 
 
 Then how grand is human destination ! Ay, your 
 destination and mine ! There is no chance; it is direc¬ 
 tion which we did not see. There is no fate, but a 
 Mother’s Providence holding the universe in her lap, 
 warming each soul with her own breath, and feeding it 
 from her own bosom with everlasting life. 
 
 In times past there is evil which I cannot understand; 
 in times present evil which I cannot solve ; suffering—for 
 mankind, for each nation, for you and me; sufferings, 
 follies, sins. I know they were all foreseen by the in¬ 
 finite wisdom of God, all provided for by His infinite 
 power and justice, and His infinite love shall bring us all 
 to bliss, not a soul left behind, not a sparrow lost. The 
 means I know not; the end I am sure of. 
 
 u Whether I fly with angels, fall with dust, 
 
 Thy hands made both, and I am there; 
 
 Thy pow r er and love, my love and trust, 
 
 Make one place everywhere.’* 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 125 
 
 In tlie world of matter there is the greatest economy 
 of force. The rain-drop is wooed for a moment into 
 bridal loveliness by some enamoured ray of light, then 
 feeds the gardener's violet, or moves the grindstone in 
 the farmer's mill, — serving alike the turn of Beauty 
 and of Use. Nothing is in vain ; all things are manifold 
 in use. 
 
 “ A rose, beside bis beauty, is a cure.” 
 
 The ocean is but the chemist's sink which holds the 
 rinsings of the world, and everything washed off from 
 earth was what the land needed to void, the sea to take. 
 All things are twofold; matter is doubly winged, with 
 Use and Beauty. 
 
 “ Nothing hath got so far, 
 
 But man hath caught and kept it as his prey; 
 
 His eyes dismount the highest star ; 
 
 He is in little all the sphere. 
 
 Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they 
 Find their acquaintance there. 
 
 “ For us the winds do blow, 
 
 The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow ; 
 
 Nothing we see but means our good, 
 
 As our delight, or as our treasure; 
 
 The whole is either our cupboard of food, 
 
 Or cabinet of pleasure. 
 
 “ The stars have us to bed ; 
 
 Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws. 
 
 Music and light attend our head : 
 
 All things unto our flesh are kind 
 In their descent and being ; to our mind 
 In their ascent and cause.” 
 
 And do yon then believe that tke great God, whose 
 motto, “ waste not, want not," is pictured and practised 
 on earth, and sea and sky, is prodigal of human suffering, 
 human woe ? Every tear-drop which sorrow has wrung 
 from some poor negro's eye, every sigh, every prayer of 
 grief, each groan the exile puts up in our own land, and 
 the groan which the American exile puts up in Canada,— 
 while his tears shed for his wife and child smarting in 
 the tropics, are turned to ice before they touch the 
 wintry ground,—has its function in the great chemistry 
 of our Father's world. These things were known by 
 God, and He will bring every exile, every wanderer in His 
 
126 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEISM. 
 
 arms, the great men not forgot, the little not less blest, 
 and bear them rounding home from bale to bliss, to give 
 to each the welfare which His nature needs to give and 
 ours to take. 
 
 The atheist looks out on a here without a Hereafter, a 
 body without a Soul, a world without a Heaven, a uni¬ 
 verse with no God; and he must needs fold his arms in 
 despair, and dwindle down into the material selfishness of 
 a cold and sullen heart. The popular theologian looks 
 out on the world and sees a body blasted by a Soul, a 
 here undermined by a Hereafter of hell, arched over with 
 a little paltry sounding-board of Heaven, whence the 
 elect may look over the edge and rejoice in the writhings 
 of the worms unpitied beneath their feet. He looks out 
 and sees a grim and revengeful and evil God. Such is 
 his sad whim. But the man with pure theism in his 
 heart looks out on the world, and there is the Infinite 
 God everywhere as perfect Cause, everywhere as perfect 
 Providence, transcending all, yet immanent in each, with 
 perfect power, wisdom, justice, holiness, and love, secur¬ 
 ing perfect welfare unto each and all. 
 
 On the shore of Time where Atheism sat in despair, 
 and where Theology howled with delight, at its Dream 
 of Hell all crowded with torment at the end,—there sits 
 Theism. Before it passes on the stream of Human His¬ 
 tory, rolling its volumed waters gathered from all lands, 
 —Ethiopian, Malay, Tartar, Caucasian, American,—from 
 each nation, tribe, and family of men; and it comes from 
 the Infinite God, its perfect Cause ; it rolls on its waters 
 by the Infinite Providence, its perfect Protector; He 
 knew at Creation the history of empires, these lesser 
 dimples on the stream ; of Ellen and A\ illiam, Cain and 
 George, the bubbles on the water’s face; He provided for 
 them all, so that not a dimple deepens and whirls away, 
 not a bubble breaks, but the perfect Providence foresaw 
 and fore-cared for it all. God is on the shore of the 
 stream of Human History, infinite power, wisdom, justice, 
 love ; God is in the air over it, where floats the sparrow 
 that fell, falling to its bliss,—in the waters, in every 
 dimple, in each bubble, in each atom of every drop ; and 
 at the end the stream falls into the sea,—that Amazon 
 of human history, under the line of Providence, on the 
 
PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 127 
 
 Equator of the world, falls into the great Ocean of Eter¬ 
 nity, and not a dimple that deepens and whirls away, not 
 a bubble that breaks, not a single atom of a drop, is lost. 
 All fall into the Ocean of Blessedness, which is the bosom 
 of love, and then the rush of many waters sings out this 
 psalm from human nature and from human history ,—“ If 
 God is for us, who can be against us ? 
 
 VI. 
 
 OF PRACTICAL THEISM, REGARDED AS THE 
 
 PRINCIPLE OF ETHICS. 
 
 LET INTEGRITY AND UPRIGHTNESS PRESERVE ME.-PSALM 
 
 xxv. 21. 
 
 Last Sunday I spoke of Speculative Theism as a Theory 
 of the Universe. To-day I ask your attention to a Ser¬ 
 mon of Practical Theism; of Theism considered as a 
 Principle of Ethics. 
 
 You start with the Idea of God as Infinite in power, 
 wisdom, justice, love, holiness; you consider Him in His 
 relation to the universe, as perfect Cause and. perfect 
 Providence; you see that from His nature He must have 
 made the world, and all things therein, from o avperfoct 
 motive, for a perfect purpose, of perfect material, us pen- 
 feet means thereto; and therefore that Human,Nature 
 must be adequate to the end which God designed; that 
 it must be provided with means adequate to the develop¬ 
 ment of men; that all the faculties in their normal ac¬ 
 tivity must be the natural means for achieving the pur¬ 
 poses of God. You see that as Pie gave Nature, the 
 material world, its present amount of necessitated forces, 
 knowing exactly how to proportion the means to the end, 
 the forces to the result which they were to produce;—in 
 like manner He gave to man his present amount of con¬ 
 tingent forces, knowing perfectly well what use men 
 
128 
 
 PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 would make thereof, what abuses would ensue, what re¬ 
 sults would come to pass, and ordered and balanced these 
 things, compensating one constant by another, caprice by 
 necessity, so that our human forces should become the 
 means of achieving His divine purpose, and the freewill 
 of men should ultimately work in the same line with the 
 infinite perfection of God, and so the result which God 
 designed should be achieved by human freedom : there¬ 
 fore, that this perfect Cause and perfect Providence has 
 provided human freedom as part of the perfect means 
 whereby human destination is to be wrought out;—which 
 destination is not fate, but providence. 
 
 Well, this Idea of God, the consequent idea of the 
 Universe and of the Relation between the two, cannot 
 remain merely a theory; it will affect human life in all its 
 most important details. 
 
 It will appear in the Form of Religion. Man must 
 always work with such intellectual apparatus—faculties 
 and ideas—as he has. With the Idea of the Infinite God, 
 he must progressively construct a form of religion cor¬ 
 responding to that idea. That form of religion will com¬ 
 prise the subjective worship, and the objective service of 
 God; and so it will become the Theoretic Ideal of Human 
 Life. 
 
 Then that form of religion will appear in the Actual 
 Life of men, and in all the modes and modifications 
 thereof •—for no human force is so subtle as the religious; 
 ‘'it Cltends; and multiplies, and goes into every depart- 
 • menf ‘of human affairs; 
 
 c < 
 
 i 
 
 (m 4 
 C 
 
 C 
 
 C 
 
 r 
 
 I <* «■ o'- 1 * 
 
 < * ► r ► 1 f O « <» 
 
 ; l t . « # u , “ Spreads undivided, operates unspent.” 
 
 ‘ t c C V ' * * “ 
 
 Let r us .now look at the theoretic Form of religion 
 which' belongs to this idea, and at the Realization thereof 
 in human life. Treating of a theme so vast I must pass 
 over much which I would gladly say, and only briefly 
 touch where I would fain pause long and dwell. 
 
 I. First, then, of the Form of Religion. Of Religion 
 there are always two parts : namely, the subjective por¬ 
 tion, which is Piety, consisting of emotions that are purely 
 internal; and next the objective portion, which is Morality, 
 internal in part, and external also; rooted in our con¬ 
 sciousness of God, and branched abroad into practical 
 
PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 129 ' 
 
 action in onr houses and farms and shops, onr warehouses, 
 our libraries, and our banks. Let me speak of each of 
 these, going over things very much at large, in the 
 sketchiest way. 
 
 ]?irst of the subjective portion. When fully grown 
 this subjective part must be pure Piety; I mean to say 
 piety not mixed with any other emotion. 
 
 There will be no Fear or Distrust of God, because it 
 is known that there is nothing in Him to fear: I fear 
 what hurts; never what helps. 
 
 Distrust of God rests on the idea that he is something 
 not perfect; imperfect in power, wisdom, justice, love, 
 or holiness; and with that idea of Him God may seem 
 good so far as He goes; but not going infinitely, He does 
 not go far enough to warrant infinite trust; and so there 
 is a partial distrust. 
 
 Fear of God is worse yet. That rests on the suppo¬ 
 sition that there is not only in God something not perfect, 
 but that there is in Him something which is not good, not 
 kind. 
 
 But you cannot fear infinite Love; you cannot fear in¬ 
 finite Justice, nor infinite Holiness; nor yet infinite Wis¬ 
 dom and infinite Power, when they are directed by infinite 
 justice and animate with infinite love. With the idea of 
 God as infinitely perfect I may indeed have doubts of to¬ 
 morrow, doubts of my own or another's temporary wel¬ 
 fare, for I know not what result the contingent forces of 
 human freedom will produce to-morrow : but I can have 
 no doubt of eternity, no doubts of my own or another's 
 ultimate welfare, because I do know that the absolute 
 forces of God will so control the conditional and con¬ 
 tingent forces of men which His plan arranged and pro¬ 
 vided for, that ultimately the perfect purpose of God shall 
 be achieved for all and each. A silversmith makes a 
 watch, knowing the powers and consequent necessitated 
 action of the materials he puts therein, so that it will 
 keep time corresponding with the dial of the heavens. 
 But he does not know how the purchasers of the watch 
 will use it, whether or no they will fulfil the conditions 
 essential to its action; and so he cannot absolutely fore¬ 
 tell and provide for all its action and history; it will be 
 subject to conditions which he cannot control or even 
 YOL. xi. — Theism , §c. 9 
 
130 
 
 PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 foresee. Now the Infinite God, at the creation of man, 
 knew all the powers He put therein; He knew all the 
 conditions into which the necessitated forces of material 
 nature, and the contingent forces of human nature, shall 
 bring mankind and each special person. Accordingly 
 God absolutely knows not only the primitive powers of 
 each man, but the action, movements; and complete his¬ 
 tory thereof under any and all the conditions of existence. 
 And the Infinite God, working with motives proportionate 
 to His nature, and means adequate to His purpose, must 
 needs make man capable of achieving that, ultimate welfare 
 which the finite needs to have and the Infinite needs to 
 give. If God be infinite, a perfect Cause and perfect 
 Providence, this conclusion follows as plain as the farmer's 
 road to mill'. So I say I can have no distrust and no fear 
 of God; no fear of ultimate failure or future ‘torment. 
 Suffering I may have in another life : I will meet it gladly, 
 and thank God; it is medical, and not malicious. In the 
 popular theology God is represented as a Jesuitical In¬ 
 quisitor; but the Infinite God is a protector, a Father and 
 Mother. 
 
 Then there will be Absolute Love of God,—to the mind 
 God will be the Beauty of Truth, to the conscience the 
 Beauty of Justice, to the affections the Beauty of Love, 
 to the soul the Beauty of Holiness, and to the whole 
 consciousness of man He will appear as the total Infinite 
 Beauty ; the perfect and absolute object of every hunger¬ 
 ing faculty of man; the Cause that creates from perfect 
 love as motive, for perfect love as purpose, and by perfect 
 love as means; the perfect Providence that provides from 
 the same motive, for the same purpose, and by the same 
 means. So He will appear as the Father and the Mother 
 of all; operating by necessitated forces in the dew-drop, 
 and in the all of material things; operating, also, by con¬ 
 tingent forces in the soul of a little girl, or in the great 
 aggregate of spirit which we call the world of man; 
 operating so perfectly as Cause and so perfectly as Provi¬ 
 dence that He is Father and Mother to every soul. I say 
 this Idea of God is infinitely lovely, and awakens in the 
 heart of a man, who draws near thereto, the deepest and 
 tenderest love. There is no doubt, no fear. 
 
 With this Idea of God, and this Love of Him, there 
 
PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 131 
 
 comes a Perfect Trust in God, as Cause and Providence :— 
 not only a trust in the daylight of science, where we see, 
 but in the twilight, even in the darkness of ignorance, 
 where we see not:—an absolute trust in His motive. His 
 purpose, and His means ; so that we shall not desire any 
 other motive but the motive of God, nor any other pur¬ 
 pose but the purpose of God, nor any other means but 
 the means He has provided thereto. 
 
 With that trust there must come a perpetual Hope, for 
 yourself, for all mankind; for as dark as the world may 
 be, dark as my own condition may be, my outward lot, 
 my inward state, still I know assuredly that God foresaw 
 it all, provided for it all, and that He cannot fail in motive, 
 in purpose, or means thereto : and thus light will spring 
 out of darkness and bliss come forth out of bale. 
 
 With this there will come Tranquillity and Pest for the 
 soul; that Peace spoken of in the fourth canonical Gospel, 
 which the world cannot give nor take away. 
 
 Then there will come a real Joy in God. I mean the 
 happiness which the Mystics call the “ sense of sweetness,^ 
 that comes when the conditions of the soul are completely 
 met; when the true Idea of God and the appropriate Feel¬ 
 ing towards Him furnish the personal, human, inward con¬ 
 dition of religious delight, and there is nothing between us 
 and the Infinite Father. That is the highest joy and the 
 highest delight of human consciousness. The natural 
 desires of the body may fail of satisfaction,—their hunger 
 shortening my days on earth,—and I may be poor, and 
 cold and naked; I ipay be a prisoner in a dungeon of 
 Austria, or a slave on a plantation of Carolina; I may be 
 sick and feeble, and the conditions of domestic and of 
 social welfare may not be complied with;—but if the 
 souks conditions are fairly met within on the side that is 
 turned towards the Infinite, then through the clouds the 
 Beauty of God shines on me and I am at peace. 
 
 So there will come a Beauty of Soul, I mean a har¬ 
 monious spiritual whole of well-proportioned spiritual 
 parts, and there will be a continual and constant growth 
 in all the noble qualities of man. God will not be thought 
 afar off, separated from Nature, separated from man, but 
 dwelling therein, immanent in each, though yet trans¬ 
 cending all. Nature will be seen as a revelation of God; 
 
132 
 
 PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 and the march of man will reveal also the same Provi¬ 
 dence as the world of matter—human consciousness dis¬ 
 closing higher characteristics of the Infinite God. Com¬ 
 munion with Him will be direct, my spirit meeting His, 
 with nothing betwixt me and the Godhead of God. I 
 shall not pray by attorney, but face to face. Inspiration 
 will be a fact now, not merely a history of times gone by. 
 Worship, the subjective service of God, will be not by 
 conventional forms of belief, of speech, or of posture; not 
 by a sacramental addition of an excrescence where nature 
 suffered no lack, nor by mutilation of the body, or muti¬ 
 lation of the spirit, the sacramental cutting off* where God 
 made nothing redundant: but by conscious noble emo¬ 
 tions shall I subjectively worship God; by gratitude for 
 my right to the Father, and in His universe the thanks¬ 
 giving of an upright heart; by aspiration after a higher 
 ideal of my own daily life; by the sense of Duty to be 
 done, which comes with the sense of Eight to be enjoyed ; 
 by penitence where I fall short; by resolutions, that in 
 my “proper motion ” I may ascend, and not by adverse 
 fall come down ; by the calm joy of the soul, its delight 
 in Nature, in Man, and in God; by the hope, the faith, 
 and the love, which the large soul sends out of itself in 
 its religious life; and by the growing beauty of character, 
 which constantly increases in love of wisdom, in love of 
 justice, in love of benevolence—in love of Man, in love of 
 God. That will be the real worship, the internal service 
 of the Father. 
 
 So much for the subjective part of this form of religion. 
 
 Of the Objective Part also a word. God, who is thus 
 subjectively served in the natural forms of Piety, must be 
 objectively served or worshipped in the natural forms of 
 Morality'; that is, by keeping all the laws of God. In 
 Nature, the material world, the law of God is the actual 
 constant mode of operation of the forces thereof,—the 
 way it does act. There all is necessitated, and we 
 know of the law by seeing the fact that it is always kept; 
 for the ideal law of matter is the actual fact of matter, 
 learned by observation, not by consciousness. So the 
 material universe and God, in every point of space and 
 time, are continually at one. If law is a constant of God, 
 obedience thereto is a constant of matter. But in man, 
 
PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 133 
 
 the law of God for man is the ideal constant mode of 
 operation of the human force,—the way it should act. 
 This is not always a fact in any man; and we learn it not 
 merely by observation of our history, but by conscious¬ 
 ness of our nature. Morality is the making of the ideal 
 of human nature into the actual of human history. Herein 
 the ideal of God's purpose becomes the actual of man's 
 achievement; and so far man and God are at one, as 
 everywhere God and matter are at one. Then for every 
 point of Right we seek to enjoy, there is a point of Duty 
 which we will to do. 
 
 Thus in general, morality will be the objective service 
 of God, as piety is the subjective worship of God. These 
 two make up the whole of Religion. They are the only 
 “ divine service : " Piety is the great inward sacrament 
 and act of worship; Morality the great outward sacra¬ 
 ment and act of service—other things are but helps. Piety 
 will be free piety, such as the spirit of man demands : 
 Morality will be free morality, such as the spirit of man 
 demands ; both perfectly conformable to the nature which 
 God put into man, to the body and the spirit,—the mind 
 and conscience, heart and soul. 
 
 This morality will consist partly in keeping the Law of 
 the Body; in giving it its due use, development, enjoy¬ 
 ment, and discipline, in the world of matter. 
 
 The popular theology, in its ascetic rules, goes to an 
 extreme, and does great injustice. It counts the body 
 mean, calls it vile, says that therein dwells no good thing. 
 It mortifies the flesh, crucifies the affections thereof. But 
 the body is not vile. Did not the infinite Father make 
 it,—not a limb too much, not a passion too many ? God 
 make anything vile ! and least of all this, which is the 
 consummation of his outward workmanship,—the frame 
 of man ! Far from us be the thought. 
 
 The Atheistic philosophy goes to the other extreme, 
 and clamours for the cc rehabilitation of the flesh," and 
 would have a paradise of the senses, as the sole and 
 earthly heaven of man. Theology turns the flesh out of 
 doors, and the soul has cold housekeeping, living alone; 
 Atheism turns the soul out of doors, and the flesh has no 
 better time of it; no, has a worse time, with its scarlet 
 women “ tinging the pavement with proud wine too good 
 
134 
 
 PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 for the tables of pontiffs.” Absolute Religion demands 
 the use of every limb of the body, every faculty of the 
 soul, all after their own kind, each performing its proper 
 function in the housekeeping of man. Then there will be 
 freedom of the body, freedom for every limb to perform 
 its function, and to perform no more. That is the morality 
 of the body. 
 
 This morality will consist also in keeping the Law of 
 the Spirit; that is, in giving the spirit its natural empire 
 over the material part of us, and in giving each spiritual 
 faculty its natural place in the housekeeping of the spirit; 
 so that each, the intellectual the moral, the affectional, 
 and the purely religious faculty, shall have its due de¬ 
 velopment, use, enjoyment, and discipline in life. Then 
 there will be spiritual freedom; that is, the liberty of 
 every spiritual faculty to perform its own work, and no 
 more. This is the morality of the spirit. 
 
 The popular Theology restrains each spiritual faculty. 
 It hedges you in with the limitation of some great or 
 little man; it calls a man’s fence the limit to God’s reve¬ 
 lation : it does not give the mind room, nor conscience 
 room, nor the affections room, nor yet the soul sufficient 
 space to serve God, each by its natural function. 
 
 One of the good things of Atheism has been this : it 
 offers freedom to the human spirit. That is its only good, 
 and its only charm. In a Church of the Popular Theology 
 the great mind cannot draw a long breath, lest it should 
 wake up the €S wrath of God,”—which, we are told, never 
 sleeps very sound, nor long at a time. In the free air of 
 Atheism the largest mind is told to breathe as deep as he 
 can, and make as much noise as he will; there is no God 
 to molest and make him afraid. That is the only charm 
 which Atheism ever had to any man. It raises men from 
 fear, and it bids them be true to that part of their nature 
 which they know. 
 
 Well, such will be the form of Religion coming from 
 Theism; such its Piety and Morality. You see it will 
 be a form of religion which fits well upon the finite side, 
 —on man; for it is derived from his nature, and repre¬ 
 sents all parts thereof, doing justice to the body, to its 
 every limb, to all its senses, functions, passions; doing- 
 justice to the spirit, every faculty thereof, intellectual. 
 
PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 135 
 
 moral, affectional, and religious. It fits just as well on 
 the infinite side—on God; for it is drawn from human 
 nature on the supposition that God made human nature 
 from perfect motives, of perfect material, for a perfect 
 purpose, and as a perfect means thereto. This form of 
 religion, then, is the application of God^s means to the 
 purpose of God. 
 
 As “ Christian ” Theology professes to be derived from 
 a verbal revelation of God,—represented by the Church, 
 as the Catholics say, by the Scriptures, as the Protestants 
 teach,—so the Absolute Religion is derived from the real 
 revelation of God, which is contained in the universe; this 
 outward universe of matter, this inward universe of man; 
 and I take it we do not require the learned and conscien¬ 
 tious labours of a Lardner, a Paley, or a Norton, to con¬ 
 vince us that the universe is genuine and authentic, and 
 is the work of God without interpolation; we all know 
 that. I call this the Absolute Religion, because it is 
 drawn from the absolute and ultimate source; because it 
 gives us the absolute Idea of God,—God as Infinite; and 
 because it guarantees to man his natural rights, and de¬ 
 mands the performance of the absolute duties of human 
 nature. 
 
 So much for this Form of Religion in itself. 
 
 II. Now see how this Form of Religion will appear in 
 the Actual Life of Man, and the subjective religious 
 thought become an objective religious thing. 
 
 See it first in the form of Individual Human Life; in a 
 Person. 
 
 He will be the most religious man who most conforms 
 to his nature; who has most of this natural piety and of 
 this natural morality. There will be various degrees 
 thereof, only one kind. He will worship God the best, or 
 subjectively serve him, who has the most love of truth, 
 the most love of justice, of benevolence, of holiness ; the 
 greatest love of Man, and the greatest love of God; who 
 most desires and strongest wills to possess these great 
 qualities ; in short, he who has the most natural piety. 
 
 He will serve God the best, objectively worship him, 
 who has the most of truth, of righteousness, of friendship, 
 of philanthropy, of holiness—fidelity to himself; he who 
 best uses the great or the little talent and opportunity 
 
136 
 
 PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 which God has given; in a word, he who has the most 
 Morality. Hg will be the most completely religious man 
 who most keeps the law of God, for his body and for his 
 soul ; and of course who co-ordinates the flesh and the 
 spirit, and duly subordinates the low qualities of the spirit 
 to the higher;—for a very little activity of the higher 
 faculties of man is worth a great deal of activity of the 
 lower; even as an ounce of gold can arty day purchase 
 some tons of sand. 
 
 This, it seems to me, is the true scale of man’s spiritual 
 faculties :—Intellect is the lowest of them, dealing with 
 truth, use, and beauty in their abstract and concrete 
 forms ; next comes Conscience, aiming at justice and eter¬ 
 nal right; next the Affections, loving persons, and sacri¬ 
 ficing my personal joy to the delight of another person ; 
 and highest of all comes the religious faculty, which I call 
 the Soul, that seeks the infinite Being, Father and Mother 
 of the Universe, and loves Him . with perfect love and 
 serves Him with perfect trust. So in the individual the 
 soul, taking cognizance of the Infinite Being, and his Re¬ 
 lation to us, is thereby our natural master. Is not this 
 true which I state ? It is not merely my psychological 
 knowledge of man which tells me this ; it is the world’s 
 history which tells it; it is the consciousness of your 
 heart, and my heart, which cry out for the living God, 
 and assure us that we must subordinate everything to 
 Him. 
 
 What a difference there will be between the saint of 
 Absolute Religion and the saint of the popular Theology. 
 The real saint is a man who aims to have a whole body, 
 and a whole mind, and a whole conscience, and a whole 
 heart, and a whole soul; and to live a whole, brave, man¬ 
 ly life, at work in the daily calling of grocer, or mason, or 
 legislator, or cabinet-maker, or historian, or seamstress, 
 or preacher, or farmer, or king, or whatsoever it may be : 
 that will be the aim of the saint of natural religion. But 
 the popular saint is an exceedingly different thing; a 
 meagre, church-rid mope, “ a-dust and thin,” a ghost of 
 humanity that haunts the aisles of the church ; for the 
 * popular saint is dyspeptic in body, dyspeptic in mind and 
 conscience, in heart and soul : you see by his face that his 
 spiritual digestion 'is poor, his stomach is weak, and his 
 
PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 137 
 
 religion does not agree with. him. He must send off to 
 the Jordan to get water to christen his baby, before that 
 baby is thought safe from the damnation of hell; baptism 
 with the spirit of God and the spirit of Man is not enough. 
 But the real saint of absolute religion must be a free 
 spiritual individual. His Piety must represent him, and 
 his Morality must represent him, and he will carry them 
 both into all his work. Knowing that God gave him 
 faculties as God meant him to have them, each containing 
 its law in itself; knowing that God provided them as a 
 perfect means for a perfect purpose, and that that purpose 
 is one which cannot fail,—he will use these faculties in the 
 true service of God; and he will work as no other man,— 
 with a strength, and a vigour, and a perseverance; ay, and 
 a beauty of character too, which nothing but Absolute 
 Religion can ever give. So there will be the greatest 
 strength to do, to be, and to suffer, sure to conquer at the 
 last. He will sail the more carefully, for he knows that 
 careful sailing is the service which God requires of him; 
 he will sail the more confident, because he knows that his 
 voyage is laid out, and his craft is insured by the Power 
 who holds the waters in the hollow of His hand; yes, that 
 it is insured against ultimate shipwreck at the great office 
 of the infinite God. Will he not work therefore with 
 greater earnestness and zeal because he knows-that God 
 gave him these talents as perfect means for a perfect 
 end; with more confidence, because he knows the end is 
 made sure of; and with more caution, because he knows 
 that the true use of the means is the only service God asks 
 of him ? 
 
 See this same thing in its Domestic Form,—that of 
 Human Life in the Family. The family must represent 
 the free spiritual individuality of man and woman, regard¬ 
 ed as equal, and equally joining by connubial love—passion 
 and affection—for mutual self-denial and mutual delight; 
 —for there is no marriage without mutual self-denial as 
 means, for mutual delight as end. Marriage between a 
 perfect man and a perfect woman would be mutual sur¬ 
 render and mutual sacrifice. 
 
 In all forms of religion that I know, from the book of 
 Moses to the book of Mormon, from Confucius to Calvin, 
 woman is degraded before man ; for in all forms of religion 
 
138 
 
 PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 hitherto Force has been preferred above all things, and 
 the great quality which has been ascribed to God is an 
 Omnipotence of Force. That is the thing which Christen¬ 
 dom has worshipped these many hundred years, not love; 
 a mighty head, a mighty arm, not a mighty heart. As 
 force is preferred before all things in God, so in man ; 
 hence in religion; thence in all human affairs. And as 
 woman has less force than man, less force of muscle, less 
 force of mind, has more fineness of body, superior fineness 
 of intellect, has eminence of conscience, eminence of af¬ 
 fection, eminence of the religious power, eminence of soul; 
 as she is inferior to man in his lower elements, and supe¬ 
 rior in his higher,—so she has been prostrated before him. 
 Her Right of nature has been trodden under-foot by his 
 Might of nature. This degradation of woman is obvious 
 in all forms of religion; it is terribly apparent in the 
 Christian Church. The first three Gospels,—the last is 
 an exception,—the writings of Paul and Peter, the book of 
 hevelation, have small respect for woman, little regard for 
 marriage. The Bible makes woman the inferior of man; 
 his instrument of comfort, his medium of posterity; cre¬ 
 ated as an after-thought, for an “ helpmeet ” to man, be¬ 
 cause “it was not good for man to be alone.” Marriage 
 in the Hew Testament—in the first three Gospels at least 
 —is only for time : “ in the kingdom of Heaven they 
 neither marry nor are given in marriage.” It is a low 
 condition here ; celibacy is the better of the two ; “ it is 
 not good to marry; ”—only “ all men cannot receive this 
 saying.” The Christ was represented as born with no 
 human father,—his very birth a fling at wedlock. The 
 Christian Church has long taught that marriage was a 
 little unholy; and woman was bid to be .ashamed of that 
 part of her nature which made her a daughter first, and 
 afterwards a wife and mother. What do Jerome, Augus¬ 
 tine, and Aquinas, and the Popes say of connubial love ? 
 They have Paul as warrant for their unnatural creed. 
 All this depreciation of woman comes from the idea of a 
 God with whom might is more than right; the idea of a 
 God that is mighty in His head, in His outstretched arm, 
 but is feeble in His conscience, and feeble in His heart; a 
 most unmotherly God. 
 
 But the Absolute Religion will give woman her true 
 
PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 139 
 
 place in tlie family, as the equivalent of man; and when 
 the family is of two free spiritual individualities, grouped 
 together by mutual love, for mutual self-denial and mutual 
 delight, then we shall have a family religion such as the 
 world never saw before. , And that will not be deemed the 
 most religious family, which has the most of psalm-sing¬ 
 ing and of prayers,—excellent things, I deny not,—but 
 that wherein every law of the body and every law of the 
 spirit are most completely kept; where man is joined to 
 woman and woman joined to man in passional and affec- 
 tional love, with mutual sacrifice and mutual surrender; 
 the wedlock of equals, not the huddling together of a 
 superior and an inferior. 
 
 See this in its Social Form,—that of ‘Human Life in 
 Communities. All men will be regarded as equal in 
 nature, equal in rights, equally entitled to take a just and 
 natural delight in the world of matter, on the same just 
 and natural conditions which God has laid down. The 
 Absolute Religion of the individual must be “ professed 
 in the institutions of society, and be made life in the world 
 of men. Then Morality will take the form of Industry in 
 all its million modes ; of Natural Enjoyment of the products 
 of industry ; of Justice, regulating the intercourse of men 
 by the golden rule, which is alike the standard measure in 
 the mind of Man and in the mind of God ; the form of 
 Friendship with a few, from whom we ask delight in return 
 for the joy we give ; the form of Philanthropy to all, asking 
 no return. Industry will be deemed a divine service; 
 and a man ; s shop, library, bank, office, warehouse, farm, 
 his station in church or state,—all will be deemed the 
 special temple wherein he is to worship the Father by 
 natural Morality,—service with every limb of his body, 
 every faculty of his spirit, every power over matter- or 
 man which he has gained. Friendship, with its mutual 
 triumph and reciprocal surrender, Philanthropy,, which 
 comes as charity to palliate the effects of ill, or as justice 
 to remove the cause of ill,—these -will be deemed the noble 
 factors in the religion of society, to work out “ a far more 
 exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory ” Then the 
 tools of a maps work, the farmer’s plough, the masom’s 
 trowel, the griddle of the cook, the needle of the seam¬ 
 stress, and the scholar’s pen, will be reckoned the conse- 
 
140 
 
 PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 crated vessels of our divine service, and of man’s daily 
 communion with man. 
 
 There will be a Church, doubtless, for gathering the 
 multitudes from the cold air, to warm their faces where 
 one great man lights the fire with sentiments and ideas 
 which he has caught from God. There will be a Sabbath • 
 for rest, for thought, for ideas, for sentiments; hours of 
 self-communion, of penitence, of weeping; aspirations, 
 hours of highest communion and life with God; but the 
 whole world will be a temple, every spot holy ground, 
 every bush burning with the Infinite, all time the Lord’s 
 day, and every moral act worship and a sacrament. Then 
 men will see that voluntary idleness is a sin; that pro¬ 
 fligacy is a sin; that deceit is a sin; that fraud in work 
 and in trade is a sin; that no orthodoxy of belief, no 
 multitude of prayers, no bodily presence in a meeting¬ 
 house, no acceptance of an artificial sacrament, can ever 
 atone for neglect of the great natural sacrament which God 
 demands of every man. 
 
 Will not that be a change in society ? Now, the man 
 of the popular theology sneaks into Church on the first 
 day of the week, and hopes thereby to atone for an abne¬ 
 gation of God on the other six; communes with God 
 through bread and wine, and refuses to commune with 
 him in buying and selling; is a liar, a usurer, a kidnapper 
 before men, while he professes to be a saint before God. 
 What is taught to him as “ revealed religion,” does not 
 rebuke his pride, nor correct his conduct. 
 
 Then, with the teaching of the true Absolute Eeligion, 
 it will be seen that the great man is only the great Ser¬ 
 vant of Mankind. He that is powerful by money, office, 
 culture, genius, owes mankind an eminence of industry, 
 justice, and love, as pay to God for the opportunities, the 
 station, the strength, which he has received. God gave 
 him greatness by nature; society gave him greatness of 
 culture, of wealth, of station;—Why ? That he might do 
 the more service, not take the more ease. The man of 
 genius is born to be eyes for the public. If he looks 
 out only for himself he has denied the faith, and is an 
 Infidel. 
 
 Then it will be seen that the true function of the power¬ 
 ful class—men strong by Money, wherein New-England 
 
PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 141 
 
 is so rich, men strong by Culture, whereof New-England 
 is even now so poor—is to do mankind an eminent ser¬ 
 vice ; to protect the needy, the defenceless, the ignorant, 
 and the wretched. Riches are valuable as they fertilize 
 the soil for human excellence to grow on, not for some 
 lazy weed to rise and rot. If wealth impoverish him that 
 gets, or those from whom it was won, there is a two-fold 
 curse, blasting him that takes, and those who aid therein. 
 If superior culture only shuts out the scholar from common 
 men, he had better have spent his years in a coal-pit than 
 a college. True religion, true manhood, teaches that if 
 you receive genius and talent from God, or culture at the 
 cost of men—you owe the use of all to men, to the poor, 
 the ignorant, the feeble-minded. Science is moral when 
 it opens the eyes of the blind, and teaches the foolish to 
 understand wisdom ; Wealth is pious when it helps Charity 
 palliate the ills she cannot cure, and aids Justice to extir¬ 
 pate the wrongs which curse mankind ; Strength is religi¬ 
 ous when it bears the burdens of the weak. 
 
 When the knowledge of the infinite God is spread 
 abroad in Society, social honours will not be given to a 
 man for the accident of famous birth, or merely for 
 gathered gold; not for the station to which some human 
 chance has blown the man; not for his culture of intel¬ 
 lect alone, nor for the dear gift of genius which God gave 
 him at his birth; but for the use he makes of his native 
 gifts or laboured acquisitions; for his faithfulness to him¬ 
 self, to man, and God; for his justice, his love, and his 
 piety, shown by tl^e use of one talent or ten. 
 
 There will always be diversities in natural powers and 
 in the use thereof, and so diversities of culture, of pro¬ 
 perty, of social station and social power. God is demo¬ 
 cratic and loves all, but the odds between the natural 
 gifts of John and James may be greater than the differ¬ 
 ence betwixt the plains of Lombardy and the Alps which 
 look down thereon. Men may try to forget this fact; 
 America may put little, mean men, with mediocrity of 
 intellect, into her president's chair; may put little, mean 
 men, with ordinary mind and with feeble conscience, with 
 inferior affections and a paltry soul, into their pulpits; 
 but God still goes on creating His great masterly men, 
 with immense intellect and commensurate moral, affec- 
 
142 
 
 PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 tional, and religious powers, who while they come to bless, 
 perforce, must overawe and terrify the littleness which 
 burrows in state and church; men who receive the earliest 
 salutation of new-rising truth, and shed it down, reflecting 
 from far up the Higher Law's intolerable day on president 
 and priest. Alas, great minds have hitherto been com¬ 
 monly the tyrant of the times, oppressors in the state, 
 and worse oppressors in the church: and humble men 
 believed that God was only Might, not also Right and 
 Love; so they paid a base and servile homage to the 
 great oppressor, and trod down justice, mercy, love, in 
 their haste to kneel before a Pope or King : Jesus of 
 Nazareth is still exceptional in the world's long life; 
 Napoleon is instantial. But if selfish popes and kings 
 are common history, the self-denying Christ is prophecy 
 of what one day shall be. For as God made the 
 mountains stony, huge, and tall, that they, screening 
 the vale below, might wrestle with the storm, and clothe 
 their shoulders with ice and snow—garments woven for 
 them and carefully put on by each wayfaring cloud,—and 
 therewith robe the plains beneath in green and vari-colour- 
 ed dress; so has He made great, mountainous-minded men 
 as forts of defence for all the rest, and treasuries of help. 
 Great men shall not always misuse their five talents, nor 
 little men hide their one piece - of tbe Lord's small money 
 in the ground; mankind* long stumbling will one day 
 learn to walk. 
 
 Then men will see that that is the most religious com¬ 
 munity where, proportionately, the most pains is taken to 
 sec.ure the welfare of all, to speed Genius on its triumphant 
 way to help the poor, the feeble, men of imperfect body 
 and imperfect brain, and those sad wrecks of circumstance 
 we now pile up in jails to moulder and to rot. A Steeple 
 and a Gallows will not always be the signs significant of a 
 Christian land. Men will not measure the religion of 
 society by the number of the temples and priests, but by 
 the colleges and school-houses, the hospitals, the asylums 
 for the old, the sick, the deaf, the blind, the foolish, the 
 crazy, and the criminal; nay, they will measure it by the 
 honest Industry in business; by Truth in science; by 
 Beauty in literature; by Justice in the state; by the 
 Comfort, the Health, the Manhood of the men. 
 
PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 143 
 
 Look at tins in its Ecclesiastical form, tkat of Human 
 Life in Churches. Men will combine about some able 
 man for these three purposes—to kindle their religious 
 Feelings by social communion ; to learn the true Idea of 
 God, of Man-, and of the Relation between the two, the 
 idea of duty to be done and rights to be possessed; to 
 make the idea a Fact; so that what at first was but sub¬ 
 jective feeling; then a thought; shall next be translated 
 into deed; done into Men, Families, Communities, States, 
 and a World, .and so the Ideal of God become the Achieve¬ 
 ment of Mankind. 
 
 Then the function of the Church will be to keep all the 
 old which is good, and get all possible good which is 
 new. No creed, no history, or Bible shall interpose a 
 cloud betwixt Man and God ; reverence for Moses, Jesus, 
 or Mohammed shall be no more a stone between our eyes 
 and truth, but a glass telescopic, microscopic, to bring 
 the thought of God yet nearer to our heart. The Bible^s 
 letter shall no longer kill; but the spirit which “ touched 
 Isaiah* s hallowed lips with fire/'’ and flamed in the life of 
 a Nazarene Carpenter till its light shone found the world, 
 will dwell also in many a new-born soul. No man shall 
 be master, to rule with authority over our necks; but 
 whoso can teach shall be our friend and guide to help us 
 on the heavenly road. 
 
 Then the minister must be a man selected for his human 
 power,—for his power of mind, of conscience, and of heart 
 and soul; with well-born genius if we can find it, with 
 well-developed talents at the least. His function will be 
 to help awaken The feeling of Piety in all mePs hearts; 
 to bring to light the ideas of Absolute Religion which 
 human nature travails with, longing to bear; and to make 
 the inward worship, also, outward act. He must help 
 apply this idea to life. Negatively—this will be criticism, 
 exposure of the false, the ugly, and the wrong, the painful 
 part of preaching, the surgery of the church. Positively 
 —it will be creation, making application of religion to the 
 individual, the family, community, state, and world. So 
 the minister will not aim to appease an offended God, 
 grim, revengeful, and full of paltry resentment; nor to 
 communicate a purchased salvation from the fabled tor¬ 
 ments of hell; nor to add the imputed righteousness of a 
 
144 
 
 PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 good man to help us to an unreal heaven. But with the 
 consciousness of God in his heart, with the certain know¬ 
 ledge of God’s infinite perfection, sure of the perfect 
 motive, purpose, means of God, and conscious of eternal 
 life, he is to preach the natural laws of man. He is to 
 lead in science, if it be possible,—in physics, ethics, 
 metaphysics ; to lead in justice, applying its abstract laws 
 to concrete life—not tp hinder them by institutions, or by 
 books, by the Yedas, the Koran, or the Testament; to 
 lead in love, connubial, friendly, philanthropic; ay, to lead 
 in holiness,—the subjective service of God, which is wor¬ 
 ship in spirit and in truth, the objective worship, which is 
 service by the normal use, development, and enjoyment of 
 every limb of the body, every faculty of the spirit, every 
 power acquired over matter or man. He will be more 
 anxious to understand truth, beauty, and justice, to have 
 love and faith; more anxious to communicate these to 
 man, and organize them into individual, domestic, social, 
 national, human life, than to baptize men in water from 
 the Jordan, the Ganges, or the Irrawaddy. He will be 
 accounted the most valuable minister who most helps 
 forward the highest development of mankind; and that 
 will be held as the most religious Church whose members 
 live the manliest life of the body and the spirit—with the 
 most of normal use, development, and enjoyment of all 
 their nature,—do the most of human duty, enjoy the most 
 of human rights, and so have the most and the manliest 
 delight in themselves, in Nature, in Man, and God. 
 
 See this religion in the Political Form, that of Human 
 Life in Nations. Here the aim will be to take the Con¬ 
 stitution of the Universe for the foundation of political in¬ 
 stitutions, making absolute Justice the standard measure 
 in all political affairs, and re-enacting the Higher Law of 
 God into all the statutes of the people’s code. Men of 
 Genius, in all its many modes, will be the nation’s teles¬ 
 copic eye to discover the Eternal Eight. The highest 
 thought of the most gifted and best cultured men will 
 become the ideal which the nation seeks to incorporate in 
 its code, to administer in its courts, and revive in its 
 daily life. That will be thought the most religious nation 
 whose institutions, constitutions, statutes, and decisions, 
 conform the most to abstract right, applying this to its 
 
fEACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 145 
 
 action abroad and at borne; where tbe whole people are 
 the best and the best off; and the higher law of God is 
 carried out in the action of the nation with other states, 
 of the government with the people, of class with class, 
 and of man with man. As proofs of the national religion 
 you will bring forward the character of the people—their 
 conduct abroad and at home, their institutions and their 
 men. 
 
 This religion must take a Cosmic, or General Human 
 Form, in the Life of Mankind. It will unite all nations 
 into one great bond of brotherhood. As the members 
 and various faculties of Thomas or Edward are conjoined 
 in a man, with personal unity for all, but individual free¬ 
 dom for each ; as several persons are joined together in a 
 family, with domestic unity for all, but individual freedom 
 for each ; as the families form a community, and the com¬ 
 munities a state, with social and national unity of action, 
 but yet with domestic and social individuality of action; 
 so the nations of the world will join together, all working 
 with cosmic human unity of action, but each having its 
 own national individuality of action. This would realize 
 the dim ideal of Pagan Zeno—who counted men, “ not as 
 Athenians and Persians, but as joint-tenants of a common 
 field to be tilled for the advantage of all and each, - ”—and 
 of Christian Paul—who taught that the God whom the 
 Athenians ignorantly worshipped “ made of one blood all 
 nations of men.” 
 
 Then law would be justice, loyalty righteousness, and 
 patriotism humanity. Men conscious of the same human 
 nature, and consciously serving the infinite God, must 
 needs find their religion transcending the bounds of their 
 Family, Community, Church, and Nation, and reaching out 
 to every human soul. But hitherto forms of religion 
 have been a wedge to sever men, and not a tie to bind. 
 The popular theologies of the world in this life aim to 
 separate the “ Christian ” from the “ Heathen,” the 
 Protestant from the Catholic, the Unitarian from the 
 Trinitarian, the new school from the old school; and in 
 the next life, “ reprobate ” from the “ elect,” the sinner 
 from the saint. 
 
 On the last five Sundays, I have spoken of Atheism 
 and of the Popular Theology. I hope I did no injustice to 
 
 vol. xi. — Theism , §c. 10 
 
146 
 
 PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 Atheism, none to the Atheist. It is a sad thought, his 
 world without a God; his here, but no Hereafter; hi3 
 body, and no Soul. I hope I did him no injustice. One 
 thing he surely has that the popular theologian has not : 
 he has Freedom; freedom from fear, freedom to use his 
 faculties. This freedom will last for ever. But the theory 
 of the atheist abuts in selfishness, and in darkness his 
 little light goes out. 
 
 I hope I did no injustice to the Popular Theology. It 
 is grim, it is awful. It bears great truths in its bosom, 
 and those truths will last for ever; but the popular the¬ 
 ology as a system must fall. It rests on two columns. 
 
 One is the Idea of an Angry God, imperfect in wisdom, 
 in power, in justice, love, and holiness; a finite, and jea¬ 
 lous, and revengful God; creating man from mean motives, 
 for a mean purpose, and of a mean material,—God with a 
 hell under His feet, “ paved with skulls of infants not a 
 span long/'’ and swarming full of horrid, writhing life, 
 that chokes it to the brim. 
 
 The other pillar is the Idea of a Supernatural Christ, a 
 God and yet a man, with a supernatural birth, supernatural 
 works, resurrection, and ascension—a supernatural aton¬ 
 ing sacrifice to take away the sins of the world. These 
 are the Jachin and Boaz of this theology. 
 
 Philosophy strikes down the first column, and there 
 is no angry God, no infinite hell “ paved with skulls of 
 infants not a span long,” and full of horrid, writhing life; 
 and so Theology swings in the air at one end. 
 
 Criticism strikes away the other pillar, the supernatural 
 Christ : there is no supernatural Christ, a God and yet a 
 man, with a supernatural birth, supernatural works, re¬ 
 surrection, ascension,—an atoning sacrifice to take away 
 the sins of the world. And so Theology swings in the 
 air at the other end. It lacks a philosophical basis and 
 historical foundation; false in its idea, and false also in 
 its historic fact. 
 
 The scientific atheist mocks at the God of the popular 
 theology. Lalande says, I have looked far off through 
 my telescope, and there is no God betwixt me and the 
 farthest star, for I have seen all the way through. 
 Elirenberg, with his microscope, finds a million million 
 of creatures in a single cubic inch of polishing slate from 
 
PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 147 
 
 Germany; but lie finds no theological God therein. The 
 chemist analyzes the materials of the world into their ele¬ 
 ments, and he finds oxygen, carbon, and the rest, but he 
 finds no theologic God therein. The scientific atheist 
 mocks at the Church's God. 
 
 The popular idea of God is inadequate for Science; ay, 
 yet worse, it is inadequate for Philanthropy; for the 
 philanthropist loves the poor, the beggar, loves the Indian, 
 the slave, the outcast, the atheist, and the criminal; and 
 Theology says “ The slave is the posterity of Ham, whom 
 God cursed by Noah and spurned from His feet; and sin¬ 
 ners are to have an everlasting hell in the world to come." 
 The atheists turn off with scorn from the theologic idea 
 of a God who knows less than Alphonso of Castile : and 
 the philanthropist, with a tear, turns from the damning 
 deity of the popular Church. 
 
 Hence comes the position of Religion to-day. Look at 
 Boston : how small is the Church and how poor; how 
 big is the tavern and how rich ! Why, the keeper of the 
 tavern in Boston is more influential than “ the minister 
 of Christ the consecrated preacher in his pulpit trembles 
 before Felix in his bar. The Holy Ghost of the Church, 
 with the other two persons of the Trinity, yields to the 
 Spirit of the Tavern; there is “ no room for them in the 
 inn ;" happy if they can find a manger with the oxen, 
 and a swaddling garment for their new-born piety in the 
 cattle's crib. Look at Boston, with its hundred clergy¬ 
 men,—religion is no restraint in business, no restraint in 
 politics; not at all; and in our literature of mediocrity— 
 that is the only literature which America yet possesses— 
 religion is a force infinitesimally small, and not felt. It 
 dares not speak against drunkenness and prostitution; it 
 is dumb religion, and dares not even oppose the stealing 
 of men out of their houses in this town. The minister's 
 “kingdom is not of this world;" no, verily, it belongs to 
 a world that is dead and gone. Respectable gentlemen 
 do not ask Morality in a lawyer; they expect it not in a 
 politician ; they ask it of the minister. God be thanked, 
 they do ask some little of it there. But it is only moral 
 decency,—compliance with easy-mannered virtue, not the 
 morality of a Paul whose spirit was stirred in him when 
 he saw the city wholly given to idolatry; no, it is only 
 
 10 * 
 
148 
 
 PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 the Ephesian morality of Demetrius ! But a lawyer whose 
 life is corrupt, who is unscrupulous and unprincipled, or 
 a politician who is rotten, will not find that he is less 
 trusted by the great cities of this country. Tell men that 
 slavery is wicked ; that to play the pirate in Cuba is sin, 
 —what do they say ? They quote the constitution. 
 “ Politics is national housekeeping, not national morality,” 
 say they. “ Talk of the Higher Law, do you ? You are 
 a fanatic ! We disposed of that long ago.” 
 
 I say the Popular Theology is not a “ finality,”—to use 
 the language of the day. It is doomed to perish. Let 
 me do it no injustice. Mankind is very serious; a very 
 honest mankind; and its great works are done with sweat 
 and watching and sore travail. Down on its knees went 
 mankind to pray for this theology; and we have it. 
 With many faults it has great truths. The truths will 
 never perish ; they will last while God is God. Even its 
 faults have done mankind no small service. War has 
 taught us activity, and discipline of body and mind; has 
 helped the organization of men; shown the power of 
 thousands when molten to a single mass, and wielded by 
 a single will. But the popular theology has taught greater 
 things than that : it has shown the omnipotent obligation 
 of Duty; to sacrifice everything for God—the body and 
 the spirit, the intellect, with its pride of reasoning, the 
 conscience, with its righteousness; the affections, with 
 their love of father and mother and wife and child. The 
 warrior, all stained with blood and sweating with his lust, 
 it taught to subordinate the flesh to the spirit, to scorn 
 the joys of the sense, to practise self-denial of ease and 
 honour and health and riches and life, for the good that 
 is purely spiritual. This is the lesson which ascetic Pro¬ 
 testantism has so grimly taught to you and me, and ascetic 
 Catholicism to the Christian world. The monks and nuns, 
 the martyrs of the Inquisition, the saints who went hun¬ 
 gry and naked and cold; the infidels and atheists who 
 turned off from all religion frighted by this bugbear of 
 the Church; the dreadful doubts and fears and madness 
 and despair of the world,—these are the tuition fees which 
 mankind has paid for this great lesson. 
 
 Let this theology pass. Science hates it. Every 
 Cyrena from the London clay—a leaf gathered from the 
 
PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 149 
 
 Book of God now newly unfolded from the flinty keeping 
 of a pebble on a subterranean beach, myriads of years 
 older than Moses—confutes Moses and turns the popular 
 Theology upside down. Philanthropy hates it; hates its 
 jealous God, its narrow love, its pitiless torment, and its 
 bpttomless and hopeless hell. Let it pass. It can do 
 little for us now; little for the mind and the conscience 
 of tho world; nothing for the affections, nothing for the 
 soul. It can only drive men by fear, not charm by love. 
 Let it pass ; and its ministers tremble before the bank, 
 the shop, and the tavern. Let the churchling crouch 
 down before the worldling if he will. 
 
 But will Atheism aid us any more ? It will do nothing, 
 cheer nothing. It has only this to perform,—to rid men 
 of fear and bondage to ancient creed. It never was a 
 spring of action, and never can be. No ! We must root 
 into the soil of God, else we perish for lack of earth. An 
 earth without a Heaven, a here with no Hereafter, a body 
 without a Soul, and a world without a God—will that 
 content the science and satisfy the philosophy of these 
 times ? Fill your mouth with the east wind ! Atheism 
 can never teach man that solemn, beautiful word ,—I 
 ought; only I must , which is Fatalism ; or I will , which is 
 Libertinism ; never I ought , which is the mark of perfect 
 obedience, and perfect freedom too. Atheism knows not 
 the word Duty which marries Might with Bight. 
 
 Well, shall we be without religion,—this Caucasian race, 
 which has outgrown the worship of Nature, Polytheism, 
 the Hebrew form of faith, classic Deism, and is fast out¬ 
 growing this popular Theology ? I smile at the dreadful 
 thought. Shall the great forces of modern civilization be 
 wielded only for material ends ? Here is America, a 
 young nation, yet giant strong, with twenty million souls 
 all cradled in her lap; and three million souls spurned as 
 dust beneath her cruel feet. She has set her heart on 
 this continent, “ I will have all this goodly land/’ quoth 
 she. She has set her affections on money, vulgar fame, 
 and power. Every mountain gives us coal, iron, lead, 
 water for our mill; California delights to tempt us with 
 her gold. And America, speaking with the new and brazen 
 trumpet of the State, says, “ There is no Higher Law 
 forbidding me to plunder Spain and Mexico, or crush the 
 
150 
 
 PRACTICAL THEISM.' 
 
 Black as I slew the Red.” Says America, through the 
 other trumpet, the old and brazen trumpet of the Church, 
 “ There is no Higher Law ! Plunder and crush ! ” 
 
 Is that to be so ? Is modern civilization, with science 
 that formulates the heavens and reads the hieroglyphics 
 of the sky, with mechanical skill which surpasses all the 
 dreams of faery,—modern civilization, with such riches, 
 such material power, such science, such physic, ethics, 
 metaphysics, with Beriins of scientific lore, with London, 
 Paris, and New York, affluent with energy—is this to be 
 an irreligious civilization; genius without justice, riches 
 without love, organization for the strong, the rich, and 
 the noble-born, an organization to oppress, a civilization 
 without God? No ! You say no, and I say no; human 
 history says no; human nature says no ! 
 
 What shall hinder ? The popular Theology ? The 
 usurer, the politician, the kidnapper, in their selfishness, 
 laugh at your Old and New Testament, and spurn at your 
 hell. The Christian churches are on the side of sin; op¬ 
 pression is favoured by them the old world through, and 
 oppression is favoured by them the new world through. 
 “ Renounce the world! ” says the priest, and means 
 “Renounce the Higher Law of God.” Soon as sin is 
 popular the church christens it, and re-annexes the sin to 
 itself. Did the American Church do aught against the 
 Mexican war ? Will it do aught against the Cuban war ? 
 It will put Cuban gold into its treasury to evangelize the 
 heathen. What does it do against the awful sin of Ame¬ 
 rica at this day ? It has strengthened the arm of the 
 oppressor; it has riveted chains on the bondmaiPs neck. 
 But just now—thanks to the Almighty God !—the churches 
 of New-England and the West, met in solemn convocation 
 at Albany, have protested against this mighty sin ; and 
 have charged their clergymen who went to those corners 
 of the land where the sin is practised, to bear their testi¬ 
 mony against it; and if men would not hear them, then 
 to depart out of their city. This is the first time; and it 
 marks the turning of the tide which ere long will leave 
 this old theology all high and dry upon the sand, a Tad- 
 mor in the desert. 
 
 The religion which we want must be of another stamp. 
 It must recognize the Infinite God, who is not to be 
 
PRACTICAL THEISM. 
 
 151 
 
 feared, but loved; not God who thunders out of Sinai 
 in miraculous wrath, but who shines out of the sun on 
 evil .and on good, in never-ending love. It must re¬ 
 spect the universe, matter, and man; and worship God 
 by natural Piety and serve Him with the Morality of 
 nature. 
 
 Then what a force Keligion will be ! There will be a 
 religion for the body, to serve God with every limb 
 thereof; a religion for the intellect, and we shall hear 
 no more of “atheistic science,” but Lalande shall find 
 God all the world through, in every scintillation of the 
 farthest star he looks at, and Ehrenberg confront the In¬ 
 finite in each animated dot or cell of life his glass brings 
 out to light; yea, the chemist will meet the Omnipresent 
 in every atom of every gas. Then there shall be a religion 
 for Conscience, the great Justice; a religion for the Af¬ 
 fections, the great Love; a religion, for the Soul, perfect 
 Absolute Trust in God, Joy in God, Delight in this Father 
 and Mother too. 
 
 Then what Men shall we have ! not dwarfed and 
 crippled, but giant men, Christlike as Christ. What 
 Families ! woman emancipated and lifted up. What Com¬ 
 munities ! a society without a slave, without a pauper; 
 society without ignorance, wealth without crime. What 
 Churches ! Think of the eight and twenty thousand Pro¬ 
 testant churches of America, with their eight and twenty 
 thousand Protestant ministers, with a free press, and a 
 free pulpit, and think of their influence if every man of 
 them believed in the Infinite God, and taught that the 
 service of God was by natural Piety within and natural 
 Morality without; that there was no such thing as im¬ 
 puted righteousness, or salvation by Christ; but that 
 real righteousness was honoured before God, and salva¬ 
 tion by character, by effort, by prayer, and by toil, was 
 the work ! Then what a nation should we have ! ay, 
 what a world! 
 
 We shall have it; it is in your heart and in my heart; 
 for God, when he put this idea into human nature, meant 
 that it should only go before the fact,—the John the 
 Baptist that heralds the coming of the great Messiah. 
 
 u Eternal Truth shines on o’er errors’ cloud, 
 
 Which from our darkness hides the living light; 
 
152 .IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 "Wherefore, when the true Bard hath sung aloud 
 His soul-song to the unreceptive night, 
 
 His words, like fiery arrows, must alight, 
 
 Or soon, or late, and kindle through the earth, 
 
 Till Falsehood from his lair be frighted forth. 
 
 “ Work on, 0 fainting Heart, speak out thy Truth ; 
 Somewhere thy winged heart-seeds will be blown, 
 
 And be a grove of Pines ; from mouth to mouth, 
 
 O’er oceans, into speech and lands unknown, 
 
 E’en till the long-foreseen result be grown 
 To ripeness, filled like fruit, with other seed, 
 
 Which Time shall plant anew, and gather when men need.” 
 
 VII. 
 
 OF THE FUNCTION AND INFLUENCE OF THE 
 
 IDEA OF IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 WE SHALL ALSO BEAR THE IMAGE OF THE HEAVENLY.- 
 
 1 CORINTHIANS XV. 49. 
 
 I ask your attention this morning to a sermon of the 
 true Function and legitimate Influence of the Idea of Im¬ 
 mortality. The subject is mosb intimately connected with 
 the Theism lately spoken of. 
 
 The boy stolen from his mother by wolves in Hindostan, 
 and brought up by them with their own young, becomes 
 like a wolf. He seems to have no thought except for the 
 day; his motives are gathered only from his present 
 wants; no more. He satisfies his animal appetites, and 
 then sleeps. Behold the sum of his consciousness ! He 
 knows no past, cares for no future, and has nothing 
 within him which checks any instinctive desire. There 
 is man reduced to his lowest terms, living from the lowest 
 motives, animal selfishness; for the lowest ends, animal 
 existence, brute enjoyment ; by the lowest means, the 
 instinct of brute desire. In that case human nature is as 
 poor as it can live. 
 
 The cultivated citizen of Boston extends his thought in 
 the present, to all the corners of the earth, takes in all 
 
IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 153 
 
 the countries of the globe; the doings in Europe and in 
 Asia affect his daily consciousness. He embraces the 
 stars of heaven; his telescopic thought sweeps the horizon 
 of the universe. The discovery of a new planet is a joy 
 to him, though his eye shall never taste its light. He 
 connects himself with the past; he remembers his father 
 and his mother, loving to trace his branch of the family- 
 tree far down,—now to a New-England sachem, now to a 
 Norman king, or till it touches the ground in some 
 Teutonic savage three thousand years ago. He loves to 
 follow its roots under-ground to Noah, or Adam, or 
 Deucalion, or Thoth, or some other imaginary character 
 in the Heathen or Hebrew mythology. Thus he enlarges 
 his 1 present consciousness by recollecting or imagining 
 the past, and is richer for every step he takes in history 
 or fantasy. Not satisfied with this, he reaches forth to 
 the future, with one hand building genealogies and tombs 
 for his grandsires, and with the other houses for his 
 grandchildren. 
 
 Thus our cultivated man enlarges his consciousness by 
 the thought of men that are about him, behind him, and 
 before him; all of these lay their hands, as it were, upon 
 his shoulders, to magnetize him with their manhood, 
 present, past, or to come; for as there is a long train of 
 men, our brothers, reaching out from you and me to the 
 furthest verge of the green earth, so there is another long 
 train, six hundred or six thousand generations deep, 
 standing behind * us, each laying its hands on its fore¬ 
 runner’s shoulders, and all communicating their blood 
 and their civilization unto us who inherit the result of 
 their bodily and spiritual toil. 
 
 It is a delight thus to extend our personality in Space, 
 by knowledge of matter and man, and control over both; 
 and in Time, by our connection with the family, reaching 
 both ways, by our relation to the human race, in its in¬ 
 definite extent backwards and around us on either hand. 
 Human motives are gathered from the whole range of 
 human consciousness and human knowledge, and our 
 inward life is enlarged and enriched by the sweep of our 
 intellect. 
 
 So the daily life of a civilized man in Boston comes 
 to be consciously influenced by his wider knowledge of 
 
154 
 
 IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 the present, by his acquaintance with the past, by his 
 anticipations of the future. This man is checked from 
 wrong and encouraged to good, by the character of his 
 acquaintances about him; some men by recollecting their 
 father and their mother, whose names we would not sully 
 with our daily sin. Almost every parent is animated by 
 the desire to bless his children in generations that are to 
 come. Thus the generations are bound together, and 
 the personality of John and Jane in actual history is 
 carried back to the first man, and in fancy is carried for¬ 
 ward to the last. A grandfather in the house, a baby in 
 the cradle, a mother at hand or afar off in the hills of 
 Berkshire, remembering us in her evening prayer,—each 
 of these is a hostage for the good conduct of mortal men. 
 This young man will not dice or drink lest he wound the 
 bosom which bore him. That young woman denies her¬ 
 self for her child, forbears the enormities of life lest she 
 should poison the blood in the veins of one not yet born, 
 or now drinking life from her breast. The wider is the 
 circle of human observation, without or within, the more 
 plenteous is the harvest of motive and delight gleaned up 
 therefrom. 
 
 But men go further than that, and extend their in¬ 
 dividuality beyond the grave. The belief in the future 
 life is at first a dim sentiment, an instinctive feeling, then 
 a conscious desire, a dreaming of immortality; then the 
 hope and fear thereof; and at last it is a certain con¬ 
 fidence in eternal life, an absolute delight in immor¬ 
 tality. 
 
 Thus successively the human landscape widens out 
 from the wolFs den of that savage boy till it takes in 
 family, neighbourhood, nation, mankind, all ages past 
 on earth,* all generations yet to come; yes, till our 
 horizon of consciousness in its sweep includes God and 
 Eternity,, 
 
 There is a God of Infinite Perfection: the Soul of each 
 man is destined to Eternal Life. These are the two 
 greatest truths which human consciousness as yet has 
 ever entertained. They are the most important; and if 
 the human treasures of thought were to go to the ground 
 and perish, all save what some few men grasped in their 
 hands and fled off with, escaping from a new deluge, 
 
IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 155 
 
 should clutch these two truths as the most priceless 
 treasure which the human race had won, and journey off 
 with them to pitch my tent anew, and with these treasures 
 build up a fresh and glorious civilization. When a man 
 is influenced by hope and fear for the Future World, he 
 is a higher being, much higher, than when this life was 
 the limit to his thought. 
 
 But the influence of the Idea of Immortality has by no 
 means proved an unmixed good. It has brought much 
 evil on the world. It has been connected with the idea 
 that God was malignant; and then the prospect of future 
 life has been the culprit^s anticipation of trial, torture, 
 and damnation without end. Men have believed that 
 the other side of the grave the Devil waited, armed with 
 his torments, to seize poor Dives, who had his “ good 
 things in this life,” and in the next stage make him smart 
 for the purple and fine linen he wore in this. So the 
 consciousness of immortality has often clouded over the 
 future life with fear. Thus there is a popular ballad of 
 the Middle Ages which describes a boy suffering be¬ 
 reavement, disease, poverty, and many a grief; and he 
 says, 
 
 “ I would fain lie down and die, 
 
 But for the curse of immortality.” 
 
 I have heard ministers preach whose notions of the fu¬ 
 ture life were of the grimmest sort,—so that with their be¬ 
 lief, I would not have sent a rat or a mouse beyond the 
 grave; nor wished my worst enemy to cross over,—and 
 yet they said the common notion of immortal life was 
 “ too good to be true ! ” It was too bad to be true. I 
 knew it was so bad that God would blot it out as a con¬ 
 tradiction which could not be, and would never allow it 
 to be a divine fact, only a human folly, which those men 
 dreamed of. 
 
 In virtue of this fear, the belief in immortality has 
 secured to the priesthood an immense amount of power, 
 and excessive dominion over mankind; an authority well- 
 nigh irresponsible, and which has led to great cruelty on 
 their part. The priest taught men, “ It is a terrible 
 thing to fall into the hands of the living God. He is 
 angry with the wicked every day, and keeps his anger 
 for ever.” “ Alas,” groaned the believer, “ what shall I 
 
156 
 
 IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 do to be saved ? ” Then the priest replied, “ J, and I 
 alone, can appease the wrath of God. O selfish Baron 
 Rackrent, full of sin, and waiting to die, give me thy 
 money, give the Church thy broad lands, or else for ever 
 suffer and rot in hell! ” And the Baron, extending his 
 selfishness beyond the tomb, frightened at the picture of 
 the “ Last Judgment ” painted on the walls of the Church, 
 or the “ Dance of Death ” sculptured in the graveyard, 
 where Death and the Devil waltz and saraband mankind 
 to Hell, gave to the priests the riches which they set 
 their celibate hearts upon, and robbed his own heirs of 
 many a fair rood of upland and of meadow under the in¬ 
 fluence of this fear and of the priesthood who fanned its 
 dreadful flame. 
 
 The thought of immortality has turned men away from 
 natural Piety and natural Morality. The priest declared, 
 “ That will do very well to live with, it is good for no¬ 
 thing to die by.” So this belief, thus distorted, has led 
 to unnatural modes of life; has crushed the delight out of 
 many a heart, and has hindered the human race in their 
 progress. Even now the fear of death and of torment 
 sicklies over the countenance of men when their mortal 
 hour draws nigh; tears, alarm, and whimpering and 
 snivelling on a death-bed, are commonly thought by ec¬ 
 clesiastical persons to be better evidence of religion in the 
 heart than a life forty or fifty years long, adorned every 
 day by the beauty of holiness within and the beauty of 
 righteousness without. 
 
 All these evils come from the idea that God is ma¬ 
 lignant and loves to torture the children of men; and 
 that idea itself has come from the infancy of mankind, 
 and like other poor follies, is one day to be outgrown 
 and left behind us with the childish things of our boy¬ 
 hood. 
 
 These evils continue at the present day; for God, 
 though called a Father, is commonly thought a tyrant. 
 So His government of this world is represented as a ty¬ 
 rannical despotism, and His Heavenly Kingdom is com¬ 
 monly painted so that it is the last thing which one would 
 think of with pleasure. I never saw a picture of the 
 “Last Judgment,” which did not make me shiver with 
 horror at the thought that any man could be so savage as 
 
IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 157 
 
 to paint it. I never read a “Judgment Hymn" in a 
 Psalm-book, from Origen of Alexandria to Lyman Beecher 
 of Boston,—even Luther's, modified by three hundred 
 years of civilization since his death,—which was not fit to 
 make a man's blood curdle in his veins. Only one sect 
 has taught the doctrine of immortality in such a guise that 
 any man need wish it to be true—the Universalists; and 
 that sect is only a small fraction of the Christian world. 
 If the common notions of eternal life were true,* then 
 we ought to call it Eternal Death; immortality would 
 be the greatest curse God could inflict upon mankind. 
 It is too bad to be true. Annihilation would be better :— 
 
 u Feelingly sweet were stillness after storm, 
 
 Though under covert of the wormy ground.” 
 
 In the popular mythology, God is represented as turn¬ 
 ing Adam and Eve out of Paradise, with bitter execra¬ 
 tions,—“ Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow 
 shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also 
 and thistles shall it bring forth to thee/'' Fortunately 
 that part of the popular mythology was writ by a man 
 who makes no mention of immortality. Probably he had 
 never heard of it. If he had he might have added that 
 God knit his brows at mankind, baring his red right arm, 
 and then said, “ Eat also of the tree of life and live for 
 ever, and I will torture you for all eternity." The Hebrew 
 writer probably had not heard of immortality; he did not 
 add that; he left it for Christian doctors to do. So in 
 the popular theology the Fall was the first misfortune of 
 mankind, and Immortality the last. To die bodily was 
 looked upon as the first curse, but to be unable to die in 
 the soul is looked upon as the last curse. Read sermons 
 —and they are of the commonest—on the fate of the 
 wicked in the next life, and they shall tell you, almost all 
 of them, that the wicked, the reprobate, the damned, will 
 call out for the hills to fall on us, on the mountains to 
 cover us; and the remorseless hills will not stir; the un¬ 
 pitying mountains will not start an inch; man shall ask 
 for annihilation and have Hell for answer. 
 
 Yet spite of this horrible doom prepared for mankind, 
 as it is alleged, which makes immortality a curse and the 
 thought of it a mildew,—the doctrine is so dear to the 
 
158 
 
 IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 human heart, to the reflective head of mankind, that it is 
 clung to, loved, believed in, and cherished by the mass of 
 men all over the world. Even the Churches* fabled hell 
 cannot frighten mankind out of their love for eternal life, 
 “ This longing after immortality.** 
 
 -“ For who would lose, 
 
 Though full of pain, this intellectual being, 
 
 These thoughts that wander through eternity ? ” 
 
 The doctrine of eternal life is always popular. If you 
 were to poll the world to-day and get the ayes and noes 
 of all mankind, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every 
 thousand would give their vote for immortality. Yet few 
 have ever reasoned about it much, and demonstrated their 
 immortality. Most men think that they take it on trust 
 from the mouth of their priest, or from “ revelation,**— 
 the Christians from the Bible, the Mahometans from the 
 Koran. But it is not so; we do not take it on trust from 
 a man. Like what else comes from the primitive instincts 
 of the human heart, we take it on trust from the Father; 
 from no less authority. 
 
 I mention these things to show, first, how deep is the 
 instinct of immortality in our heart, for all nations above 
 the nakedness of the most savage have fastened their 
 hopes on this ; they have dug down to this primitive rock, 
 never very far from the surface; and next to show how 
 strong it is, which even the fear of the future eternal 
 torment cannot annihilate. For sixteen or eighteen hun¬ 
 dred years the Christian Church has preached the doc¬ 
 trine of immortality in such a form that it is only an¬ 
 other name for the wrath of God and eternal torment to 
 the mass of men; but with all this preaching it has not 
 scared the belief thereof out of the heart of man, and it 
 cannot. 
 
 And yet dear as this doctrine is to the heart of man¬ 
 kind, for many hundred years you find powerful men of 
 great ability aiming to destroy the belief in it. These 
 philosophers have had a bad name in human history be¬ 
 cause they denied what the heart of man loved to believe, 
 wliat the analogy of Nature plainly taught, and what also 
 the noblest philosophy proves as its very highest affirma¬ 
 tion. It is a strange thing that men who have preached 
 
IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 159 
 
 eternal damnation for tlie vast majority of mankind, liave 
 a good name in every Church,—St Augustine, Gregory, 
 —half a dozen of that name,—St Bernard, a mighty 
 preacher of eternal ruin; and in our own country, Ed¬ 
 wards, Hopkins, and Emmons, among the most venerable 
 names of our American Church. But on the other hand, 
 men who have declared that God was too good to perse¬ 
 cute His children beyond the tomb,—they have every¬ 
 where received a bad name. 
 
 If a man denies the immortality of the soul, his oath is 
 not allowed in the courts of Christendom. Even in 
 Massachusetts he is an “ outlaw,” and can prove nothing 
 in a Court of “ Justice,” except by the testimony of some 
 “ believer.” His account-books are no “ evidence ” in 
 court, his testimony of no value. But a man who teaches 
 that the God of the Christians is a thousand times more 
 cruel than any idol-deity of Scandinavia or Hindostan, 
 who will “torture with fire and red-hot plates of iron,” all 
 but ten in the million, has his oath allowed him in every 
 court! 
 
 But we ought to look at the reason which has led the 
 philosophers to deny the doctrine. Some of them have 
 doubtless been low and vulgar men,—as mean as their 
 theological opponents,—and from lowness and vulgarity 
 denied what their lowness and vulgarity hindered them 
 from comprehending. But that is a very small class 
 amongst philosophic men; and it is a rare thing to find a 
 low and vulgar man flying in the face of popular opinion 
 for the sake of an idea. Such men preach the popular 
 doctrine, not the opposite. But it is a fact of history 
 that in old time, from Epicurus to Seneca, some of the 
 ablest heads and best hearts of Greece and Rome sought 
 to destroy the idea of immortality. This was the reason : 
 they saw it was a torment to mankind, that the popular 
 notion thereof was too bad to be true; and so they took 
 pains to break down the Heathen mythology, though with 
 it they destroyed the notion of immortal life. - They did 
 a great service to mankind in ridding us from this yoke 
 of fear. The Pagan philosopher and scoffer was a “ fore¬ 
 runner” of Jesus,—quite as much so as John the Baptist. 
 Be assured of this; it is a great thing to destroy an or¬ 
 ganized tryanny, even if at first you set up no govern- 
 
160 
 
 IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 ment in its place; for such is the creative power of the 
 human spirit that, if it have a free chance to work, it will 
 soon raise up new Romes out of the dust, and leaving the 
 monarchies of the old continent, will build up republics in 
 the new. After you have hewn down the forest and 
 driven off the catamount and the wolf, it is not a hard 
 thing to raise corn and sheep in the new soil. 
 
 But soon as Christianity became established in the 
 State, the old tyranny of fear got set up anew; and as 
 the doctrine of immortality appeared in a more distinct 
 form and became more apparent in the Christian than in 
 the Hebrew or Heathen Church, so this fear of future 
 torment became more distinct and more powerful; yes, 
 it became absolute. It was connected with the doctrine 
 of the Fall; with “ foreordination by the divine decrees,” 
 which is the Fatalism of the Christian Church,—the same 
 thing which had taken a form slightly different in the 
 Greek and Roman theologies, and was again to appear, 
 modified a little further, in the Mahometan theology;— 
 with the idea of “ total depravity,” and the “ infinite 
 evil ” of sin; and in such bad company, what wonder is 
 it that the doctrine of immortality became what it did be¬ 
 come ? It was fear of God, not love of Him. It was fear 
 of future torment which brought down the knee and the 
 neck of Christian Europe under its priestly tyrants. It 
 was not love of God which built the costly domes of Italy, 
 and the cathedrals of the North. No, it was fear of hell. 
 An atheistic pope wished to build up a costly church in 
 Rome. He wanted money,—he had rack-rented all Italy, 
 —and so he sent round his apostles, first to preach the 
 wrath of God, the torments of the future world; next 
 that the priesthood had power to appease that wrath and 
 abate those torments; then, as a third thing, that they 
 would do all this for money. Monk Tetzel went about 
 to sell his indulgences,—pardons for sins past, present, 
 and to come. He offered to ticket men all the way 
 through to Heaven; and they might take any quantity of 
 luggage of sin with them, by paying a small additional 
 fare. He had a drum beat; and when men assembled he 
 mounted his stand, opened his ticket-office, and began 
 hawking and peddling his ecclesiastical wares. Luther 
 said, “ I will make a hole in TetzeFs drum ! ”—So he did. 
 
IMHOETAL LIFE. 
 
 161 
 
 “ The pope,” said Luther, “ cannot save men from Pur¬ 
 gatory ; his tickets will not be taken anywhere on the 
 road. Keep yonr money and renounce your sin ! ” The 
 sale of indulgences went down all at once; the market 
 stopped. 
 
 But the tyranny of fear was not broken : there was only 
 one mode less of escaping it. . You could no longer buy 
 off the wrath of God. There lay the bottomless pit, and 
 there was none to ticket men across. Other men under¬ 
 took to make a larger hole in that same drum; to smite 
 in both heads of it. They said, “ The soul is not im¬ 
 mortal : death is the end of you ! ” These men laboured 
 to destroy the Christian mythology, just as the old scoffers 
 and philosophers had sought to make way with the Heathen 
 mythology. Did that denial satisfy the world ? Quite far 
 from it. 
 
 The Human Race is under great obligation to these 
 deniers. These “ atheists ” have done mankind great 
 service. Epicurus, Pyrrho, Lucretius, Bruno, Voltaire, 
 Paine, Hume, are among the benefactors of the race. It 
 is a great thing to destroy a superstition which rides men 
 as a nightmare. But some of them were among the most 
 miserable of alb this earth's martyrs that I have ever read 
 of. There they sat, surrounded by jollity and elegance, 
 wine and scarlet women, the victims of circumstances 
 which they could not control. Their fate was far more 
 pitiful than that of St Sebastian or St Catherine. Who 
 would not rather be shot through and through with 
 arrows, or broken for once on a wheel of iron and wood, 
 than be shot at with doubts of immortality and broken 
 constantly with dread of annihilation ? Believing men 
 who build up a new religion are always harshly treated, 
 scourged in the market, beaten, let down out of windows 
 in the wall of the city, shipwrecked, persecuted, leaving 
 their heads in a charger, or their bodies on a cross. They 
 have our sympathy, and deserve it,—brave souls in hardy 
 iron flesh. But the unbelieving men who broke down 
 the old religions, and saw no other light in the dusky 
 ruin they made,—they are sadder martyrs in the world's 
 great story ! Drop a tear then on the grave of Voltaire, 
 on the tomb of Pomponatius, and on the fires which con¬ 
 sumed Jordano Bruno. You and I are made free by their 
 
 vol. xi.— Theism , #c. 11 
 
162 
 
 IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 sufferings ; by their sorrows are our joys made more cer¬ 
 tain. In a better age Yoltaire might have been as devout 
 and religious as Gerson or Luther, and Bruno have been 
 burned not as a heretic, but as a Christian. 
 
 The work of theological destruction is not yet over; 
 far enough from it. The popular mythology must go the 
 same way with the old Greek and Roman mythology, and 
 other martyrs are doubtless demanded for that. No Em¬ 
 peror Julian, apostatizing from the progress of mankind, 
 can save what is false, or destroy the true. 
 
 The leading philosophers of Europe seem to have small 
 faith in immortality; some positively deny it; a few 
 mock at it. Many of the enlightened Germans, whom 
 oppression drives to America, deny the immortality of 
 the soul, some openly scoff at the hope of eternal life; 
 and say all belief therein is a misfortune, for it clouds 
 over meffs happiness now with fear of future torment, 
 hinders their progress, and makes them believe that Virtue 
 and Justice are not good for their own sake, but only as 
 means to another end. There is a good deal of truth in 
 their objections, no doubt; but they all apply only to a 
 false idea of immortality and a wrong use of it; not at all 
 against the true doctrine itself. It seems to me these 
 philosophers wholly overlook the deep desire of mankind 
 for personal immortality ;—the natural belief which is so 
 general that it is universal, except in those who have cul¬ 
 tivated their intellect at the expense of the conscience, 
 the affections, or the soul; or in whom, in early life, 
 some prejudice has hindered the natural instincts of man¬ 
 kind. They forget what a powerful motive to good it is, 
 what a present enjoyment it affords to the human race ; 
 and their denial, it seems to me, is most unphilosophic. 
 And yet they are doing the same service now that Zeno 
 and Lucretius and Lucian did for Christianity. They are 
 the forerunners of some better “ dispensation ” that is to 
 come. 
 
 I know some men fear that these bold deniers, of im¬ 
 mortal life will destroy the belief of mankind therein. I 
 have no fear of that. Spite of the Catholic Church for 
 sixteen hundred years preaching immortality as a curse, 
 and the Protestant Church for three hundred years pro¬ 
 claiming it as a mildew and blight,—men have still en- 
 
IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 163 
 
 tertained the belief; and if all the learned clergy of the 
 .Protestant world, if all the Catholic clergy of the dark 
 ages, could not make any considerable number of men 
 doubt of immortality, I do not believe that a handful of 
 philosophers speaking in the name of philosophy or 
 mockery, can ever put down that which has held mankind 
 so strongly for two or three thousand years. Immortality 
 has kept the field against Augustine and Jerome, the 
 Basils, the Gregories, and Bernard; has held its own 
 spite of Aquinas and Calvin and Edwards and Hopkins 
 and Emmons, and I think it can laugh at Strauss and 
 Comte and Feuerbach. Has it not in its time heard 
 devils roar, and yet held its own against the Hell of the 
 Church ? Do you think, then, it has anything to fear 
 from the Earth of the material philosophers ? 
 
 We know little of the next life; nothing of the details 
 thereof. In all the accounts of the future world which 
 are commonly thought by Christians and Mahometans to 
 come from miraculous revelation, you see how poor is the 
 invention of mankind: the basis of the future heaven is 
 always human, earthly. The Mahometan heaven is only 
 what the Mahometan wishes to make earth, a paradise of 
 the senses; all the passions, littleness, and vulgarity of 
 the Mussulman are carried thither and repeated on a 
 great scale. It was so in the Greek heaven; in the 
 heaven of the ancient Germans. The Book of Revelation 
 in our Bible is the work of some bigoted Jew, apparently 
 not at all improved by the Christianity of his time; and 
 its heaven is only a New Jerusalem, a most uncomfortable 
 place for .anybody but male and unmarried Jews. With 
 the Puritans, Heaven was a New Plymouth or a New 
 Boston, where the “ Elect ” had the monopoly which they 
 wanted to get in the old Plymouth or old Boston, but 
 could not quite accomplish ; where all the time was Sun¬ 
 day, and the chief business was going to meeting; the 
 chief joy was psalm-singing and listening to Calvinistic 
 explanations of the Scripture, now and then delighting 
 their eyes with the sight of their former opponents writh¬ 
 ing in the pains of damnation. It was the Puritans* 
 earthly life, idealized a little, and made eternal; they 
 hoped to see their enemy tortured in hell whom they 
 could not whip at the tail of a cart on earth. The ancient 
 
164 
 
 IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 X 
 
 ghosts, who used to be seen, and the modern ghosts, who 
 are now only heard, in their “ News from Heaven ” only 
 reveal things taken from our daily life. The theological 
 details of the future life are chiefly imaginary, and drawn 
 from our daily intercourse with common things. 
 
 It seems to me, however, that we may for a certainty 
 know this,—that man is immortal; that I consider as 
 fixed as the proposition that one and one make two. 
 Then that God is infinitely perfect, a perfect Cause and 
 a perfect Providence; that I consider equally certain as 
 that one and one make two. Of course His infinite care 
 must extend over the whole existence of mankind; must 
 make the future life an infinite blessing for mankind on 
 the whole, an infinite blessing for every human soul. 
 This follows from what has already been said of the nature 
 of God; for the infinite God must create His w^ork from 
 perfect motives and for a perfect purpose,, form it of per¬ 
 fect material and provide it with perfect means to attain 
 the perfect end He has proposed. Accordingly, His 
 scheme of things must be so contrived as at last to achieve 
 perfect welfare for the whole of mankind, and for each 
 particular person. 
 
 The Form of the future life we know nothing of— 
 whether man shall have a body or no body ; and if a.body, 
 what shape of body; whether it shall resemble the human 
 shape or any other shape that we can imagine. Man can 
 know nothing of that; no more than the unborn babe can 
 dream of the exploits which it shall perform in after years, 
 in science, art, and daily life. 
 
 I am glad that we do not and cannot know this, I do 
 not wish to know; and if it were possible for me to 
 receive a “ miraculous ” knowledge of what should take 
 place the other side of the grave, I would say to the be¬ 
 ing who brought the tidings, “ Stand back ! I do not 
 wish to know.” Time is the best fortune-teller. AVhat 
 God has put out of man’s power to reach, it is not man’s 
 need to have, and it is not his wisdom to grasp after. 
 
 The notion of eternal misery, of punishment for the sake 
 of punishment, the doctrine that God exploiters the hu¬ 
 man race and that men are “ tortured for the glory of God,” 
 
 -—that notion deserves all the scorn, all the hate, all the 
 ribaldry, all the mockery which it ever met with from 
 
IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 165 
 
 Lucian and Lucretius, from Pomponatius and Voltaire, 
 from Thomas Paine and Richter and Feuerbach: their 
 hammer is not at all two heavy for their hard work. 
 
 But the idea of immortality as it belongs to the Abso¬ 
 lute Religion, consistent with the Infinite Perfection of 
 God, the philosopher need not hate that; for the belief 
 therein is true to the spontaneous consciousness of human 
 nature, to the reflective consciousness of philosophy, and 
 it is of the greatest value to man as a hope, encouragement, 
 and reward. Let me be sure of two things,—first, of 
 Thine Infinite Perfection, 0 Father in Heaven ! then of 
 my own Immortality,—and I am safe, I fear nothing; I 
 am not a transient bubble on the sea of Time, I shall out¬ 
 last the “ everlasting hills,” I am immortal as the monads 
 of matter, immortal as its laws ! I may rely on myself, 
 respect myself, feel within me the yearnings after immor¬ 
 tality, and I know there is an Infinite Heart which yearns 
 infinitely for me and will take me to itself and bless me at 
 the last. 
 
 Then I can rely on something better than I see with 
 my eyes—on the Ideal Excellence which I think in my 
 heart. I can make a sacrifice for it; I can postpone my 
 How for an immortal Then; I can labour for noble things 
 which it will take a thousand years to accomplish. Things 
 about me may fail, the mountain may fall and come to 
 nought and the rock be removed out of its place, be ex¬ 
 haled a vapour to the sky—I shall not fail. I see 
 
 “ The Soul is builded far from accident: 
 
 It suffers not in smiling pomps, nor falls 
 Under the brow of thralling discontent; 
 
 It fears not Policy,—that heretic 
 
 That works on leases of short-numbered hours, 
 
 Put all alone stands hugely politic.” 
 
 If to-morrow I am to perish utterly, then I shall only 
 take counsel for to-day, and ask for qualities which last no 
 longer. My fathers will be to me only as the ground out 
 of which my bread-corn is grown ; dead, they are like the 
 rotten mould of earth, their memory of small concern to 
 me. Posterity,—I shall care nothing for the future gener¬ 
 ations of mankind. I am one atom in the trunk of a tree, 
 and care nothing for the roots below, or the branch above. 
 I shall sow such seed as will bear harvest at once. I shall 
 
1G6 
 
 IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 know no Higher Law : Passion enacts my statutes to-day ; 
 to-morrow Ambition revises the statutes; and these are 
 my sole legislators. Morality will vanish, Expediency 
 take its place. Heroism will be gone, and instead of it' 
 there will be the brute valour of the he-wolf, the brute 
 cunning of the slie-fox, the rapacity of the vulture, and the 
 headlong daring of the wild bull;—but the cool, calm 
 courage which, for truths sake, and for love’s sake, looks 
 death firmly in the face and then wheels into line ready to 
 be slain, that will be a thing no longer heard of. Affection 
 will be a momentary delight in other men. The friendship 
 which lays down its life for father, mother, wife, or child, 
 for dear ones tenderly beloved, which sucks the poison from 
 their wounds,—the philanthropy which toils and provides 
 for the friendless, the loveless, the unlovely, and the 
 wicked,—that will only be a story of old time, to be 
 laughed at as men laugh at the tale of the Grecian boy 
 who loved the New Moon as his heavenly bride. 
 
 But if I know that I am to live for ever, and when 
 yonder sun has seen the whole host of heaven circle about 
 the centre of the universe a million million times, that I 
 still live on, making a greater progress in every forty years 
 than what I have grown to since first I left my mothers 
 arms ; if I know that Mankind will still survive with ever- 
 greatening faculties in some other life, directed by the 
 same Infinite Mind and Conscience and Heart and Soul 
 that made us first, and guides us in our heavenward 
 march ; if I know that each beggar in the street, that 
 every culprit in the jail, or out of it, or haling men thither, 
 has an immortal soul, and will go on greatening and 
 beautifying more and more,—then I shall take the highest 
 qualities which I know, or feel, and work with them; and 
 I shall feel that my personality is one of the permanent 
 forces of the universe, and shall toil with conscious dignity 
 and loving awe. I shall respect myself, and so respect 
 each brother man. 
 
 In a hostile country the enemy builds his house of tent- 
 poles and cloth, to last a single night; pillages the 
 neighbourhood, hews down the tree to eat its lialf-ripe 
 fruit, careless of the toil which planted and the hope that 
 waits therefor; and to-morrow he marches away, his city 
 of a night reduced to tent-poles and canvas, packed up in 
 
IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 167 
 
 his cart: a bit of vari-coloured bunting on a stick, is the 
 symbol of his nomadic havoc. _ But the resident farmer 
 carefully gathers and providentially plants the seed, and 
 painstakingly rears up the tree, prunes it, grafts it, waits 
 his score of years, and then, apple by apple, he gathers its 
 fruit, the soft for present use, the sound for future store; 
 and his broad bam of. limestone, his -house of brick, and 
 his marble church,—these are the symbols of the resident. 
 So, under the stimulus of immortality, we shall cultivate 
 those plants of the soul which take deep root, which re¬ 
 quire years, even ages, to grow, and slowly bear their 
 fruit, a blessing for generations yet to come. 
 
 If I know that I am to live for ever, in the heat of sen¬ 
 sual passion, I shall not set my heart on lust and mere 
 bodily delight; I know something more delightful. In 
 the period of ambition, I shall not set my heart on gold 
 only, or the praise of men; I know what is richer, I know 
 a fame better-than fame. I shall remember that lam 
 more than passion's slave, or the madman of ambition; I 
 shall give both their due,—passion its own, and ambition 
 what belongs thereto. Biches and honour,—I shall give 
 them both their own. Then I shall go deeper down, and 
 bring to light the brighter diamonds which I quarry in 
 the human mine. 
 
 Consciousness of immortality will not lead to contempt 
 of this life, to weariness of it, to neglect of its duties. 
 Looking up, I shall wish to set my foot on every round of 
 the human ladder. In the dark places of the earth the 
 candle of the Infinite will shine on the habitations of 
 cruelty; and I shall see the way to stave them to the 
 ground, and in their place build up fair-faced dwellings for 
 the sons of men. 
 
 To the mortal eye this is a sad world. What a history 
 it is before me,—looking out of these four or five thousand 
 eyes! What day dreams of yours and mine have broke 
 into nothing ! What toils unrequited, what sorrows 
 which the world did not know,—all laid away in our con¬ 
 sciousness, stratum over stratum, deposited under tranquil 
 or troubled seas ! 
 
 Look at the world;—at Boston, with all the sorrow 
 which festers in her heart; at happy America, with her 
 dreadful evils; at Europe, with her France, so high, and 
 
108 
 
 IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 then so low; with her Germany, full of contemplation,— 
 and a chain on her neck ; with Italy and Spain ground 
 under a tyrant’s foot; look at Asia, “ the cradle of the 
 human race,” the cradle turned over and the child spilled 
 out;—at Africa, the nursery of the slaves of the world;— 
 at the Islands of the Sea;—and consider that man is only 
 mortal, and what a spectacle it is ! I should die outright 
 at the thought of that ! But as I know that I shall live 
 for ever, and that the Infinite God loves you and me, each 
 man that walks the ground,—I can look on these evils of 
 the world, on America, Europe, with her France, Germany, 
 Italy, Spain;—I can look on Asia, Africa, and the Islands 
 of the Sea ;—and it is all only the hour before sunrise, the 
 light is coming; yes, I am also to light a little torch to 
 illuminate the darkness, while it lasts, and help until the 
 dayspring come. 
 
 How heavy are the griefs of personal mortal life ! 
 Health decays into sickness, hope into disappointment; 
 death draws near to our little troop of pilgrims, and when 
 we pitch our tent he takes away some beloved head,—a 
 baby now, then an old man, then a father or a mother, a 
 husband or a wife, a relative or a friend,—and at last we 
 sit there, near the end of our pilgrimage, solitary, over 
 our night fire, a few embers only left, and they burning 
 low, while the enemy draws near to quench them, then 
 clutches us and we vanish also into night. 
 
 u Alas for love, if this were all, 
 
 And nought beyond the earth ! ” 
 
 The Atheist sits down beside the coffin of his only child 
 —a rose-bud daughter whose heart death slowly eat away; 
 the pale lilies of the valley which droop with fragrance 
 above that lifeless heart, are fiowers of mockery to him; 
 their beauty is a cheat. They give not back his child for 
 whom the sepulchral monster opens its remorseless jaws. 
 The hopeless father looks down on the face of his girl, 
 silent, not sleeping, cold, dead. The “effacing fingers” 
 have put out the eye, yet marble beauty still lingers there, 
 and love, a father’s love, continually haunts the disen¬ 
 chanted house. Atheism cannot speed it away; affection 
 has its law, wdiicli no impiety of thought annuls. He 
 looks beyond,—the poor sad man,—it is only solid dark- 
 
IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 1G9 
 
 ness lie stares upon. No rainbow beautifies that cloud; 
 there is thunder in it, not light. Night is behind—with¬ 
 out a star. His dear one has vanished, her light put out 
 by thunderous death, not a sparklet left. There is no 
 daughter for him—but alas, he is a father still; yet no 
 father to her. For her whose life the blameless baby took, 
 long years gone by, there is no mortal husband, no im¬ 
 mortal mother. Child and mother are equal now ; each is 
 nothing, both nothing. “ I also shall soon vanish," exclaims 
 the man, “ blotted out by darkness, and become nothing 
 •—my bubble broke, my life all gone, with its bitter tears 
 for the child and the mother who bore her, its bridal and 
 birthday joys, which glittered a moment—how bright they 
 were, then slipped away,—my sorrows all unrequited, my 
 hopes a cruel cheat. Ah me ! the stars slowly gathering 
 into one flock, are a sorry sight—each a sphere tenanted 
 perhaps by the same bubbles, the same cheats, the same 
 despair—for it is a here with no Hereafter, a body with 
 no Soul, a world without a God ! " 
 
 Hard by in the same village, the selfsame night, a 
 thoughtful man, born, baptized, and bred a theological 
 Christian, full of faith in the popular mythology of the 
 churches, accepting its grimmest ghastliness, sits down 
 by the bedside of his prodigal son, his only child, — 
 lifers substance squandered on harlots, wasted in riotous 
 living. Death knocks at the profligate'’s oft-battered 
 door: no syren shakes the wanton windows now. The 
 last hour of the impenitent has come. The father looks 
 on that face so like its mortal mother once, now stained 
 by riot,, and scarred by lust, the mother’s image broke 
 and crushed: so in the sack of a city, a statue of Mary is 
 whelmed over a church portal, and thrown down, and the 
 fragments of shattered loveliness are crunched to dust be¬ 
 neath the lumbering cannon wheels and vulgar drays, 
 while from the street the artist eyes the shards of beauty 
 wrought from his dreams and prayers. The father feels 
 the breath of the vampyre of the tomb as it slowly numbs 
 the youthful limbs,—joint by joint, finger by finger, hand 
 by hand : he sees the mist cloud over the inanimate and 
 soulless eye. Life slowly ripples out from that once 
 manly heart. Telescopic memory sweeps the horizon of 
 the father's consciousness. He remembers the cradle,— 
 
170 
 
 IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 bought with such triumph; the birth-night; the little 
 garments previously made ready for the expected guest; 
 the prayer of gratitude for the given and the spared when 
 first he saw his first-born son; he recalls the day of his 
 marriage, when he stood on the world's top and Heaven 
 gave him that angel—it seemed so then—to be loved, a 
 real angel now, long since gone home to Heaven, her 
 heart broken by the son's precocious waywardness. The 
 father watches the ebb of mortal life, it is the flood of 
 hell, bitter, remorseless, endless hell; his son sinks into 
 damnation—joint by joint, and limb by limb. Now he 
 has sunk all over ! The mortal father turns to religion 
 for comfort. Theology tells him of the fire that is never 
 quenched, of the worm which dieth not, the torments of 
 his child—the smoke ascending up for ever and ever, and 
 bidding him be glad at the eternal anguish of his only 
 son. His Bible becomes a torment;—in the “many man¬ 
 sions" of its Heaven he knows none for the impenitent 
 prodigal whom Death drives from husks and swine. He 
 looks up after God; a grisly King makes the earth trem¬ 
 ble at his frown—angry with the wicked every day, and 
 keeping anger for ever; there is no Father. He turns to 
 the “ Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief," asking 
 “ will not Mary's Son help me in peril for mine ? for a 
 sword pierces through my own soul also." But the Cru¬ 
 cified thunders, “ Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlast¬ 
 ing fire prepared for the devil and his angels;" and all 
 the host of theological “ Christians" respond—“ He shall 
 go into everlasting punishment! Amen ! " For him there 
 is no Christ—nor never shall be one. Religion is a tor¬ 
 ment, immortality a curse, and God a devil ! “Is there 
 no Mother for my son ? " he cries. The finger of The¬ 
 ology, hiding the morning star, points down to Hell, and 
 the voice of Night with cold breath whispers “ For ever." 
 
 At the grave the “ Atheist" and the theological 
 “ Christian" look each other in the face; one has laid 
 away his daughter for annihilation—he is the father of 
 nothing; the other has buried his son in eternal torment, 
 the father of a devil's victim, of a soul for ever damned ! 
 What comfort has the one from Nothing, the other from 
 Hell ? Human Nature tells both, “ it is a lie. Atheism is 
 here a lie; the popular theology is there another he." 
 
IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 171 
 
 Yes, it is a lie. Eternal morning follows tlie night; 
 a rainbow scarfs the shoulders of every cloud weeping its 
 rain away to become flowers on land and pearls at sea; 
 Life rises out of the grave, the Soul cannot be held by 
 festering flesh. Absolute Keligion puts this ghastly the¬ 
 ology to everlasting rest; the Infinite Mother will merci¬ 
 fully chasten, heal, and bless even the prodigal whom 
 death surprised impenitent; Love shall cast out fear. 
 
 But conscious of the infinite perfection of God, with the 
 consciousness of immortality in my heart, all this time I 
 smile through my tears, as Death conveys in his arms, one 
 by one, the dear ones from my side. I see them go up 
 like fabled Elijah in his car of flame. I see their track of 
 light across the sky, and I am contented; I am glad; I 
 also shall presently journey in the same chariot of fire, 
 and sit down again beside the dear ones who have gone 
 before;— 
 
 iC Nightly I pitch my moving tent 
 A day’s march nearer home.”— 
 
 I smile on fifall, and am a conqueror over Death. 
 
 My friends, I look at things as they are, at least strive 
 to do so, and if I had come to the conclusion that man 
 was mortal only, 1 should proclaim my conscientious con¬ 
 clusion strongly, and clearly, and right out. If I thought 
 in my heart th&t there was no God, why, then I should 
 proclaim that odious conviction. Nay, if I believed in 
 the God of the popular theology, the God who retails 
 agony and damns babies, paving his spacious hell with 
 “ skulls of infants not a span long,^—that He made reli¬ 
 gion a torment, immortality a curse, and was Himself a 
 devil, why I should tell that too,—and would never hold 
 back from mortal men what I thought Truth, howsoever 
 much it might tear my own heart to get it, or my lip to 
 proclaim it. But, looking with what philosophy I have, 
 with what nature God has given me, I come to the other 
 conclusion, and wish only that I had poetic eloquence to 
 set it forth till it went into every man ; s heart, and drove 
 fear out therefrom, and planted everlasting life therein. 
 
 I see not how any man can be content with blank anni¬ 
 hilation, to have no consciousness of immortality, no con¬ 
 sciousness of God.—Chance ! Fate ! Annihilation ! 
 
172 
 
 IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 “ Are these the pompous tidings ye proclaim, 
 
 Lights of the world, and demi-goas of fame ? 
 
 Is this your triumph—this your proud applause, 
 Children of Truth, and champions of her cause ? 
 
 For this hath Science searched, on weary wing, 
 
 By shore and sea—each mute and living thing ? 
 Launched with Iberia’s pilot from the steep, 
 
 To worlds unknown, and isles beyond the deep; 
 
 Or round the cope her living chariot driven, 
 
 And wheeled in triumph through the signs of heaven ? 
 Oh ! star-eyed Science, hast thou wandered there 
 To waft us home the message of despair ?— 
 
 Then bind the palm, thy sage’s brow to suit, 
 
 Of blasted leaf and death-distilling fruit! ” 
 
 “ What is the bigot’s torch, the tyrant’s chain ? 
 
 I smile on Death, if heavenward Hope remain ! 
 
 But if the warring winds of Nature’s strife 
 Be all the faithless charter of my life ; 
 
 If Chance awaked,—inexorable power !— 
 
 This frail and feverish being of an hour ; 
 
 Doomed o’er the world’s precarious scene to sweep, 
 Swift as the tempest travels on the deep ; 
 
 To know Delight but by her parting smile, 
 
 And toil, and wish, and weep, a little while ; 
 
 Then melt, ye elements, that formed in vain 
 This troubled pulse and visionary brain ; 
 
 Fade, ye wild flowers, memorials of my doom! 
 
 And sink, ye stars, that light me to the tomb! ” 
 
 But with, the consciousness of immortality, with a cer¬ 
 tain knowledge of the Infinite Perfection of God, the 
 perfect Cause, the perfect Providence, I cau do all things : 
 no doom is hopeless; disaster is the threshold of delight. 
 
 “Nearer, my God, to Thee ! 
 E’en though it be a cross 
 That raiseth me, 
 
 Still all my song shall be,— 
 Nearer, my God, to Thee, 
 Nearer to Thee! ” 
 
PROVIDENCE. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 GOD WILL PROVIDE.-GEN. XXII. 8. 
 
 In a previous sermon I have already spoken of the 
 Infinite God as Cause, and as Providence. But the 
 constant Relation of God to the world which He creates 
 and animates, is a theme too important to be left with 
 the merely general treatment I have bestowed upon it. 
 Atheism and the Popular Theology are both so unphilo- 
 sophical in their Theory of the Universe; the function 
 ascribed to finite Chance, the Supreme of the Atheist, in 
 the one case, and to the Finite God, the Supreme of the 
 theologian, in the other, is so at variance with the primi¬ 
 tive spiritual instincts of human nature, and so unsatis¬ 
 factory to the enlightened consciousness of cultivated and 
 religious men, that the subject demands a distinct and 
 detailed investigation by itself. It will require three ser¬ 
 mons :—the first going over the matter very much at 
 large and treating of Providence in its universal forms, 
 the others relating to the application thereof to the va¬ 
 rious Phenomena of Evil—to Pain and Sin. I shall not 
 hesitate to repeat the same thoughts and even the same 
 forms of expression, previously made use of in these ser¬ 
 mons. I do this purposely, both to avoid the needless 
 multiplication of terms, and the better to connect this 
 whole series of discourses together. 
 
 The notion that God continually watches over the 
 world and all of its contents is one very dear to mankind. 
 It appears in all forms of conscious religion. The wor¬ 
 shipper of a fetiche regards his bit of wood, or amulet, as 
 a special Providence working magically and exceptionally 
 for his good alone. Polytheism is only the splitting up 
 of the idea of God into a multitude of special Providences 
 —each one a sliver of deity. Thus man has 
 
 “ Parcelled out the glorious name.” 
 
 The Catholic invokes his Patron Saint, who is only a 
 rude symbol and mind-mark of that Providence which is 
 
174 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 always at hand. Pantheism puts a Providence in every 
 blade of grass, in each atom of matter. The Epicureans 
 of old time denied the Providence of God and dreamed of 
 lazy deities all heedless of the Universe. But their theory 
 is eminently exceptional in the theological world, yet per¬ 
 forming a service and correcting the extravagance of men 
 who run too far, in devout exaggeration attributing all to 
 God’s act. 
 
 In virtue of the functions of Providence ascribed to 
 God, He is called by various names: Lord, or King, means 
 providential Master ruling the world and exploitering its 
 inhabitants for His good, not theirs. That is the favourite 
 Old Testament notion and title of God: He is King, men 
 are subjects, or even slaves. Yet other names therein 
 appear, for the Old Testament is not unitary. In the 
 New Testament, from His providential function God is 
 often called Father, indicating the affection which controls 
 His power : He is not merely King over subjects, and Lord 
 over slaves, but a Father who rules His children for their 
 good, restrains that He may develope, and seemingly 
 hinders that he may really help. Hence in the Old Tes¬ 
 tament, slaves are bid to fear God; in the New Testament, 
 children are told to love Him. However, the New Tes¬ 
 tament is not more unitary in this respect than the Old, 
 and the cruel God appears often in the Gospels, the 
 Epistles, and the Apocalypse, not a Father, but only a 
 Lord and King, exploitering a portion of the human race 
 with merciless rapacity. 
 
 A king is bound politically to provide for his subjects, 
 inasmuch as he is king; political providence is the royal 
 function. A father is afiectionally and paternally bound 
 to provide for his children, inasmuch as he is father; 
 affectional providence is the paternal function. But as 
 the father, or the king, is limited in his powers, so the 
 paternal or political function is limited; for duty does not 
 transcend the power to do. Their providence is neces¬ 
 sarily imperfect, not reaching to all persons in the king¬ 
 dom, or to all actions of their subject. A good king and 
 a good father, both, wish to do more for their charge than 
 their ability can reach. Their desirable is limited by 
 their possible. 
 
 The Infinite God is infinitely bound to provide for His 
 
PROVIDENCE. 
 
 175 
 
 creatures, inasmuch as He is Infinite God; Infinite Pro¬ 
 vidence is the divine function. His function as God. 
 
 A Duty involves reciprocal obligation; a Right is the 
 correlative of a Duty. There is a human Duty to obey, 
 reverence, and love God, with our finite nature; but also, 
 and just as much, is there a human Right to the protection 
 of God. So there is a divine Duty on God's part, of Pro¬ 
 vidence toward man, as well as a divine Right of obedience 
 from man. I mean to say, as it belongs to the finite con¬ 
 stitution of man to obey, reverence, and love God—the 
 duty of the finite toward, the Infinite ; so it belongs to the 
 Infinite constitution of God to provide for man—the duty 
 of the Infinite toward the finite. Obedience belongs to 
 man's nature, Providence to God's nature. We have an 
 unalienable lien upon His Infinite Perfection. 
 
 I know men often talk as if God were not amenable to 
 His own Justice, and could with equal right care for His 
 creatures or neglect them; that His Almighty power 
 makes Him capable of immeasurable caprice and liberates 
 Him from all relation to Eternal Right. Hence it is often 
 taught that God may consistently make a vessel of honour 
 or of dishonour out of this human clay, as the potter does; 
 or may consistently jest with His material, waste it, throw 
 it away, destroy it, as the potter's apprentice does for 
 sport in some moment of caprice; or may break the 
 finished vessels as the potter himself does when drunk or 
 angry. In virtue of this general notion, it is popularly 
 taught in all Christendom that God will thus waste some 
 of His human clay, casting human souls into endless 
 misery; and in the greater part of Christendom it is 
 taught" that He will destroy the majority of mankind in 
 this way; that He has a natural Right to do so, and man 
 has no Right to anything but the caprice of God. 
 
 This doctrine is odious to me; and I see not how men 
 can entertain such an idea of God, and still call Him good. 
 This doctrine is equally detestable whether you consider 
 it in relation to the condition of men consequent thereon, 
 or to the character of God which causes that condition. 
 This false idea tends to unsettle men's moral convictions. 
 The consequence appears in various forms. The State 
 teaches in practice that national Might is national right; 
 that so far as the state is concerned there is no right and 
 
176 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 no wrong; whatever it may will is justice, the nation not 
 amenable to moral law. The Church theoretically teaches 
 that Infinite Might is infinite right; that God repudiates 
 His own Justice; that so far as God is concerned there is 
 no right, no wrong; with Him caprice stands for reason. 
 The atheist agrees with the theologians in this, only he 
 rejects the ecclesiastical phraseology, knowing no God. 
 
 I will not speak of Mercy, commonly conceived of as 
 the limitation of Eight, strong manly Justice obstructed 
 by womanly sentiment and weakness. But speaking 
 of bare Justice I say, that from the Idea of God as Infi¬ 
 nite it follows that He has no right to call into being a 
 single soul and make that soul miserable for its whole 
 life ; or to inflict upon it any absolute and unrecompensed 
 evil; no right to call into, life a single worm and make 
 that worm's life a curse to itself. It is irreverent and 
 impious to teach that He could do this. It is a plain con¬ 
 tradiction to the idea of God. It is as impossible for Him 
 to create anything from an imperfect motive, for an im¬ 
 perfect purpose, of imperfect material, or as imperfect 
 means, as it Would be for Him to make Eight wrong, the 
 same thing to be and not to be, or one and one not two, 
 but two thousand. I as finite man am amenable to the 
 laws of my finite, human nature; He as Infinite God to 
 the laws of His infinite, divine nature. To say that God 
 has a right, or a desire, to repudiate his Infinite Justice, 
 that He will do it, or that as God He can, is as absurd as 
 to say that He will and can make one and one two thousand 
 and not two. And to me it seems as impious as to say 
 there is no God. Indeed it is a denial of God, not merely 
 a negation of His phenomenal existence, but of the very 
 Substance of His Being. 
 
 Now from the Infinite Perfection of God it follows 
 that His Providence is Infinite, that is, completely perfect 
 and perfectly complete ; that as Cause and Providence He 
 works continually to bless His creatures, and only to bless 
 them. 
 
 This must be so : for the opposite could only come 
 from a defect of Wisdom—He did not know how to bring 
 about their welfare ; from a defect of Justice—He did not 
 will their welfare; from a defect of Love—He did not 
 desire it; from a defect of Power—He could not bring it 
 
PKOVIDENCE. 
 
 177 
 
 to pass; or a defect of Holiness—He would not use the 
 power, love, justice, and wisdom for His creatures^ sake. 
 This might be said of conceptions of God as finite,—of 
 Baal, Melkarth, Jupiter, Odin, Jehovah ; never of the 
 Infinite God ; He, inasmuch as He is God, must exercise an 
 infinite Providence over each and all His works. The 
 universe, that is, the sum total of created matter and 
 created mind, must be perfectly fitted to achieve the pur¬ 
 pose which God designs; that must be a benevolent pur¬ 
 pose, involving the greatest possible bliss for each and all, 
 for the Infinite God could desire no other end. 
 
 From this it follows that the material part of the uni¬ 
 verse, and its spiritual part also, must be perfectly adapt¬ 
 ed to this end. A perfect whole, material or spiritual, 
 consists of perfect parts, each answering its several pur¬ 
 pose, and so the whole fulfilling the purpose of the whole. 
 No part must be lost; no part absolutely sacrificed to the 
 good of another, or of all others, and to its own harm and 
 ruin. 
 
 All this follows unavoidably from the idea of God as 
 * infinitely perfect. Starting from this point all is plain. 
 But concrete things often seem imperfect because they do 
 not completely serve our transient purpose, while we know 
 not the eternal purposes of God. We look at the imme¬ 
 diate and transient result, not at the ultimate and perma¬ 
 nent. Thus the mariner cannot come to port by reason of 
 the storm and rocks which obstruct his course ; he thinks 
 the weather imperfect, the world not well made, and you 
 often hear men say, “ How beautiful the world would be 
 if there were no storms, no hurricanes, no thunder and 
 lightning/'’ While if we could overlook the cosmic forces # 
 which make up the material world, we should see that 
 every actual storm and every rock was needful; and the 
 world would not be perfect and accomplish its func¬ 
 tion had not each been put there in its proper time and 
 place. 
 
 An oak-tree in the woods appears quite imperfect. 
 The leaves are coiled up and spoiled by the leaf-roller; 
 cut to pieces by the tailor-beetle; devoured by the liag- 
 moth and the polyphemus, the slug caterpillar and her 
 numerous kindred; the twigs are sucked by the white- 
 lined tree-hopper, or cut off by the oak-pruner; large 
 VOL. xi.— I'heism, $c. 12 
 
178 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 limbs are broken down by the seventeen-year-locust; 
 the horn-bug, the curculio, and the timber-beetle eat up 
 its wood ; the gad-fly punctures leaf and bark, converting 
 the forces of the tree to that insect's use ; the grub lives 
 in the young acorn ; fly-catchers are on its leaves ; a spi¬ 
 der weaves its web from twig to twig; caterpillars of 
 various denominations gnaw its tender shoots; the creeper 
 and the woodpecker bore through the bark; squirrels— 
 striped, flying, red, and gray — have gnawed into its 
 limbs and made their nests; the toad has a hole in a flaw 
 of its base; the fox has cut asunder its fibrous roots in 
 digging his burrow; the bear dwells in its trunk which 
 worms, emmets, bees, and countless insects have helped 
 to hollow; ice and the winds of winter have broken off 
 full many a bough. How imperfect and incomplete the 
 oak-tree looks, so broken, crooked, cragged, gnarled, and 
 grim ! The carpenter cannot get a beam, the millwright 
 a shaft, or the ship-builder a solid knee for his purpose ; 
 even the common woodman spares that tree as not worth 
 felling; it only cumbers the ground. But it has served 
 its complicated purpose; given board and lodging to all 
 these creatures, from the ephemeral fly, joying in his tran¬ 
 sient summer, to the brawny bear for many a winter 
 hibernating in its trunk. It has been a great woodland 
 caravansary, even a tavern and chateau, to all that hetero¬ 
 geneous swarm ; and though no man but a painter thinks 
 it a perfect tree,—and he only because the picturesque 
 thing serves his special purpose,—no doubt the good God 
 is quite contented with His oak, and says, “ AA ell done, 
 good and faithful servant." He designed it to serve 
 these manifold uses, and also to furnish beauty for the 
 painter's picture and meaning for the preacher's speech. 
 Doubtless it enters into the joy of its Lord, having com¬ 
 pletely served His purpose ; He wanted a caravansary and 
 chateau for these uncounted citizens. To judge of it we 
 must look at all these ends, and also at the condition of 
 the soil that had a superabundance of the matter whereof 
 oak-trees are made. 
 
 We commonly look on the world as the carpenter and 
 millwright on that crooked oak, and because it does not 
 serve our turn completely we think it an imperfect world. 
 Thus men grumble at the rocky shores of New England, 
 
PROVIDENCE. 
 
 179 
 
 its sterile soul, its winters long and hard, its cold and 
 biting spring, its summers brief and burning, and seem to 
 think the world is badly put together. They complain of 
 wild beasts in the forests, of monsters in the sea, of toads 
 and snakes, vipers, and many a loathsome thing—hideous 
 to our imperfect eye. How little do we know ! a world 
 without an alligator, or a rattlesnake, a hyaena, or a shark, 
 would doubtless be a very imperfect world. The good 
 God has something for each of these to do; a place for 
 them all at His table, and a pillow for every one of them 
 in Nature's bed. 
 
 Though Theologians talk of the infinite goodness of 
 God and the perfection of His Providence, they have yet 
 a certain belief in a Devil; even if it is not always a per¬ 
 sonal devil, at any rate it is a Principle of Absolute Evil, 
 which they fear will, somehow, outwit and override God, 
 getting possession of the world; will throw sand into the 
 delicate watch-work of theUniverse and completely thwart 
 the Providence of the Eternal. 
 
 This comes from that dark notion of God which haunts 
 the theology of Christendom; yea, of the Hebrew, the 
 Mahometan, and Hindoo world. It is painful to see how 
 this notion prevails amongst intelligent and religious men. 
 They tell you of the greater activity of the Evil Principle; 
 they see it in the insects which infect the grain and fruit- 
 trees of New England, forgetting that God takes care of 
 these insects as well as of man. When we study deeper, 
 we see that there is no evil principle, but a good principle, 
 so often misunderstood by men. If we start with the idea 
 of the infinite God we know the purpose is good before 
 we comprehend the means thereto. 
 
 There are two ways in which men assert the doctrine 
 of God's Providence, two philosophical and antagonistic 
 doctrines thereof. 
 
 I. One makes God the only Will in creation; animals 
 are mere machines, wholly subordinate to their organiza¬ 
 tion ; man is also a mere machine, wholly subordinate to 
 his organization. Thus all the action in the world, mate¬ 
 rial and spiritual, is the action of God. The universe con¬ 
 sists of two parts, one real, the other phenomenal. First, 
 there is God the Actor ; next, a parcel of Tools or Puppets, 
 
 wholly passive, having no will or life of their own; and 
 
 12 * 
 
180 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 with these God works, or plays. On this supposition His 
 Providence has a clean sweep of the universe ; every sen¬ 
 timent, good or bad; every thought, true or false ; every 
 deed, blessing or baneful, is His work. The sun is an un¬ 
 conscious instrument of God; I am a conscious instrument, 
 but still a bare tool in God^s hand, not a free agent. 
 
 This comprehensive scheme, reducing life to mechanism, 
 appears in many forms. It belongs to the gross philoso¬ 
 phy of the materialist; it is the cardinal doctrine of the 
 pantheist, material or spiritual, the most offensive and dan¬ 
 gerous of his doctrines. It is the great idea with the fatal¬ 
 ists of all classes. But it appears in the theological sects 
 also, as well as in philosophic parties; for man cannot 
 escape from his first principle, neither in philosophy nor 
 in theology. It lies at the basis of the Catholic and Pro¬ 
 testant theology. Calvin and d^Holbach agree in this. 
 The contradiction it leads to is plain in the preaching and 
 writings of almost every Calvinistic or Catholic theologian 
 w ho tries to reconcile liis theology with the common facts 
 of consciousness. Now he says you must do for yourself 
 and then God v r ill help you; but adds you can do nothing 
 till God begins it for you. The popular hymn contains 
 the same contradiction: 
 
 “ Bound on a voyage of awful length, 
 
 Through dangers little known, 
 
 A stranger to superior strength, 
 
 Man vainly trusts his own. 
 
 “ But oars alone will not prevail 
 To reach the distant coast; 
 
 The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, 
 
 Or all the work is lost.” 
 
 But in Dr Hopkins and Dr Emmons and their followers 
 and predecessors, as well Protestant as Catholic, this doc¬ 
 trine is logically carried out to its natural results ; in 
 defiance of consciousness, they boldly and simply declare 
 that God is the direct author of every thought and feeling, 
 wfill and deed. It is curious to see how men reach the 
 same result, starting from opposite points; curious to see 
 how Antinomianism—Catholic or Protestant—arrives at 
 the most objectionable characteristic of Pantheism, which 
 it yet so abhors. 
 
PROVIDENCE. 
 
 181 
 
 On tliis hypothesis the function of Providence appears 
 quite simple; all action is God’s action. The phenomenal 
 actor may be human, but the only real agent is God. For 
 example : Cain kills Abel with a club, the spite of his 
 heart flashing from his angry eye. That is the pheno¬ 
 menon. But the fact is God killed Abel with Cain’s 
 arm; Cain and the club were equally passive instruments 
 in the hand of God. Here the intervention of Cain, with 
 his malicious feeling and flashing eye, is only a part of 
 the stage machinery, for theatrical effect, but the con¬ 
 triver and worker of it all is God. His ways are simple; 
 matter and man have really nought to do. This doctrine 
 shocks common sense and is at war with the conscious¬ 
 ness of every man. It is eminently at war with religious 
 feeling; for on this supposition actual suffering and sin 
 are of no human value; they lead to nothing; it is in vain 
 for the grass to grow, the human hay is cut and dried by 
 foreordination. 
 
 II. The other doctrine of Providence makes man’s will 
 free, absolutely free, not at all conditioned by circum¬ 
 stances, bodily organization, and the like. The philoso¬ 
 phical question of freedom and necessity I do not design 
 to enter upon. It is one of the most difficult questions in 
 metaphysics, and I certainly am not able to solve the 
 riddle. There are difficulties in either hypothesis, and I 
 have not psychological science enough to explain them in 
 the court of intellect. Philosophy is intellect working in 
 the mode of art; Common Sense is intellect working after 
 its- natural instinct, not in the technical mode of art. 
 Philosophy demonstrates; common sense convinces with¬ 
 out demonstration. In default of philosophy, we must 
 follow common sense; that does not settle the matter 
 scientifically and ultimately, but practically and provision¬ 
 ally, subject to revision in another court. But common 
 sense decides in favour of Freedom. Every man acts on 
 that supposition; and supposes that other men are like¬ 
 wise free. Courts of law proceed on this hypothesis ; 
 public opinion distributes praise or blame; my own con¬ 
 science commends, or else cries out against me. I am 
 conscious of freedom. 
 
 But a little experience shows that this freedom has its 
 limitations, and is not absolute. It is conditioned on every 
 
182 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 side,—by my outward circumstances, the events of my 
 history, the accidents of education, the character of my 
 parents and daily associates; by the constitution of my 
 body—its varying health, hunger, and thirst, youth, man¬ 
 hood, and old age. In comparison with a shad-fish, or a 
 blackbird, Socrates has a good deal of freedom, and is not 
 so much subordinate to his organization, or his circum¬ 
 stances, as they; but in comparison with the Infinite 
 freedom of God his volitiveness is little. To speak figur¬ 
 atively, it seems as if man was tied by two tethers—the 
 one of historic circumstance, the other of his physical 
 organization—fastened at opposite points, but the cord is 
 elastic, and may be lengthened by use, or shortened by 
 abuse and neglect; and within the variable limit of his 
 tether man has freedom, but cannot go beyond it. Still 
 further, to carry out the figure, one man gets entangled in 
 his confining line, and does not use half the freedom he 
 might have; another continually extends it, and becomes 
 more free. 
 
 It is plain that however these circumstances may or 
 may not limit our ideas, or will, they must determine the 
 form of our conceptions and our power to execute them in 
 works. 
 
 On the hypothesis that man is absolutely, or partially, 
 free, the function of Providence is much more compli¬ 
 cated. There are primary and secondary powers ; there 
 are other agents beside God, using the power derived 
 from Him to work with after their own caprice : so God 
 acts in part by means of the freewill of men. This theory 
 seems to me conformable to common sense and common 
 consciousness, and is perhaps the most philosophic of any 
 that has yet been arrived at. 
 
 So much for these two theories of Providence. 
 
 There are two modes in which God’s providence is 
 commonly supposed to act, namely, the General and the 
 Special. 
 
 God’s general providence, it is said, takes in the 
 greater part of cases in the material and spiritual world, 
 and provides for them. In this way He is thought to 
 accomplish His function by geiieral laws, which are a con¬ 
 stant mode of operation, representing the continual and 
 inferior activity of God; but this does not extend to all 
 
PROVIDENCE. 
 
 183 
 
 cases. God*s special providence attends to particular 
 cases, not otherwise provided for, and disposes of tliem. 
 One is a court of common or statute law, the other a court 
 of equity. In special providence God is supposed not to 
 act by general laws, but without them, or against them. 
 All normal action in Nature comes from general provi¬ 
 dence ; all Miracles from special providence. Thus a 
 freshet in the Connecticut, and the annual rising of the 
 Nile, belong under the general providence of God and 
 come by the action of steadfast laws ; but the miraculous 
 Flood in the time of Noah came of God*s special provi¬ 
 dence, having no cause in Nature, only in the- caprice of 
 God. This form of special providence in Nature is known 
 only to the theologian, not to the man of science. 
 
 To take examples from human affairs, it is maintained 
 that God*s general providence waited on the whole human 
 race, but the Hebrews were under His special providence, 
 and He went so far in their case as to make a contract with 
 Abraham, which St Paul thought God was under an obli¬ 
 gation to keep, and could not invalidate. 
 
 All men in general are under the general providence, 
 but Christians enjoy the special providence of God, or, as 
 Dr Watts has it, 
 
 “ The whole creation is Thy charge, 
 
 But Saints are Thy peculiar care.” 
 
 It is said that the forms of religion in China, India, Egypt, 
 Greece, and Mexico, came by the general providence of 
 God, growing out of the nature of man, or coming at the 
 instigation of the devil, having their root in the human or 
 the infernal nature; while the Hebrew and the Christian 
 forms of religion came by His special providence, started 
 in God, and were miraculously transplanted to human 
 soil. 
 
 Certain Christians are thought still more eminently 
 under God’s special providence. They are the “ elect/* 
 and the world was made for them. The Mahometan 
 thinks the same of his form of religion and of the elect 
 Mussulmans. Christian theologians say that saints, the 
 elect, share the “ covenanted mercies ** of God and are 
 favourites, enjoying His special providence, while the rest 
 of men are left to His “ uncovenanted mercies,** and have 
 
184 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 need to tremble. The governor of Massachusetts a few 
 years ago, in his proclamation for a day of fasting, invited 
 men to pray God to bless the whole United States in 
 general, but to have “ a special care of the good State of 
 Massachusetts.” The Hebrews, thinking God cared no¬ 
 thing for the Gentiles, praised him saying, “ Thou didst 
 march through the land in indignation. Thou didst thrash 
 the heathen in anger; Thou wentest forth for the salvation 
 of Thy people; ” “ Thou didst drive out the heathen with 
 Thine hand.” 
 
 So Christians think God has His favourit es amongst men, 
 and, like a partial father, takes better care of some of His 
 children than of the rest: you and I share His common 
 concern and are under His general laws ; Jesus of 
 Nazareth had his special care and was under special laws. 
 It would be thought a great impiety to suppose that God 
 felt as much concern for Judas as for Jesus, and would 
 no more suffer the son of Simon to be ultimately lost, 
 than the son of Mary. Yet if you think twice you will 
 see that the impiety is on the other side; for if God does 
 not care as much for Iscariot as for Christ, as much de¬ 
 siring and insuring the ultimate triumph of the one as the 
 other, then He is not the Infinite Father whose ways are 
 equal to all His children, but partial, unjust, cruel, wicked, 
 and oppressive. You do not think so well of the British 
 government because it neglects its feeblest subjects, the 
 labouring millions, making England the paradise of the 
 rich and strong, the purgatory of the wise and good, and 
 the hell of the poor and weak. You condemn the govern¬ 
 ment of the United States because it lias its favourites, and 
 oppresses and enslaves the feeblest of its citizens to in¬ 
 crease the riches of indolent and cruel men. You would 
 not employ a schoolmaster who turned off the dull boys 
 and beat the bad ones, disposed to truancy and mischief, 
 driving them out into the streets to swelter in crime, to 
 fester in jail, or rot on the gallows. What indignation 
 would suffice towards a mother who neglects a backward 
 boy, takes no pains with the girl that is a cripple, or with 
 a son who has an organic and hereditary tendency to dis¬ 
 sipation and licentiousness ? I do not like to say a man 
 is impious without proof that he means it; but to attri¬ 
 bute so base a character and such unjust conduct to God 
 
PROVIDENCE. 
 
 185 
 
 as yon would not respect in a government, allow in a 
 schoolmaster, or endure in a mother, is thoughtless, to 
 say the least of it. But that is the common idea of God 
 in the Christian churches, and the common idea of His 
 providence. 
 
 The modern notion of a special providence, wherein 
 God acts without law or against law, is the most spiritual 
 and attenuated form of the doctrine of miracles, the last 
 glimmering of the candle before it goes out. Men who 
 give up the miraculous birth of Jesus still claim that he 
 was under the special providence of God. As the State 
 has general laws which apply well enough to the majority 
 of cases, but has special legislation for the exceptional 
 cases which were not provided for by the general statutes; 
 and as it has a jury whose function is to determine if the 
 law shall punish this or the other man who has violated 
 it, so the popular theology teaches that God^s providence 
 has its general legislation, which applies well enough to 
 the majority of cases, and its special legislation, which 
 applies only to the exceptional cases, with its particular 
 mercy, which, like the jury, refuses to execute the law 
 when it seems too hard. For it is tacitly taken for granted 
 by the popular theology that God did not foresee and pro¬ 
 vide for all the wants of the Universe, material or spiritual, 
 but is sometimes taken by surprise, things not turning 
 out as He designed or expected, and so He must interfere 
 by special miracles, mend His work, set up makeshifts and 
 provisional expedients. Thus it is represented that the 
 loneliness of Adam in Paradise, his seduction and fall, the 
 subsequent wickedness of his descendants, the transgres¬ 
 sions of the Hebrews, and the general sinfulness of man¬ 
 kind at a later day, were all a surprise to the Creator, 
 things not turning out according to His thought. New 
 expedients must accordingly be devised to meet the un¬ 
 expected emergency. 
 
 In like manner it is taught that Jesus of Nazareth was 
 under the special providence of God; that all history pre¬ 
 pared for him and pointed to him; that he had a special 
 mission; while you and I are only under the general pro¬ 
 vidence, history has not prepared for us, does not point 
 to us, and we have no special mission;—in short, that 
 Jesus is a providential man, with a providential function 
 
186 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 and history, while you and I are not providential men, 
 and have no providential history or function. 
 
 This common theological notion of the limited general 
 providence and limited special providence of God belongs 
 to the very substance of the popular theology, and springs 
 from its idea of God as finite in power, in wisdom, in 
 justice, and in love. Some ancient and some modern 
 philosophers, seeing the change and progress in manifest¬ 
 ation, believe there is a corresponding change in the 
 manifestor, and declare that God is not a Being but a Be¬ 
 coming. The popular theology has the same vice,— 
 though the theologians are not conscious thereof, and de¬ 
 nounce it,—believing that God grows wiser by experiment, 
 and must alter His plans. Yet in contradiction of their 
 own statements, they declare Him without variableness 
 and shadow of turning; while according to the popular 
 theology the history of God is a history of revolutions, 
 even in His dealing with His chosen people, the revelation 
 through the Messiah being flat opposite to the revelation 
 through Moses which it annuls. Pantheism and the 
 popular theology, hostile as they are, agree in this strange 
 conclusion—the negation of the Infinite, and the affirma¬ 
 tion of a variable God. The pantheist consciously denies 
 the one and affirms the other, in laying down his premises; 
 the theologian does it unconsciously, in developing his 
 conclusion. 
 
 From the Nature of God as Infinite, from the relation 
 He sustains to the creation, as perfect and perpetual Cause 
 thereof, it follows that His Providence must be not barely 
 special—eminently providing for certain things,—or 
 general—taking care of the great mass but letting ex¬ 
 ceptional particulars slip through his fingers;—it must be 
 universal. It must extend to each thing He has created, 
 to all parts of its existence and to every action thereof. 
 If it be not so, then either some parts of creation are 
 entirely derelict of God, destitute of His Providence, with¬ 
 out His care, neglected by Him and outlaws from God, 
 put to the ban of the Universe ; or else destitute of 
 His Providence during some portions of their exist¬ 
 ence, or in some acts of their lives. Either case is at 
 variance with the Infinite nature and function of God. 
 For when the Infinite God created the universe, it must 
 
PROVIDENCE. 
 
 187 
 
 have been from a perfect motive, of a perfect material, 
 for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect means thereto ; 
 and He must therefore have understood it all completely 
 —in each of its parts, and perfectly—in all the details of 
 each part; and, knowing all the powers, he foreknows all 
 the actions, necessitated or contingent, and provides for 
 each. This must be true of the Universe as a whole ; and 
 of each part thereof. All its actions must be thus pro¬ 
 vided for. The laws of the Universe, the constant modes 
 of operation of the material or human forces, must be 
 founded on this complete and perfect knowledge, and co¬ 
 extensive therewith, and be exponents of that motive and 
 servants of that purpose. This is what is meant, when it 
 is said the laws of matter and of mind belong to the 
 nature and constitution of matter and of mind. These 
 laws are formed after a complete knowledge of all the 
 properties, functions, and consequences of matter and 
 mind. Before there were two particles of matter in ex¬ 
 istence, the Infinite God must have understood the law of 
 attraction, in its larger form as gravitation, its smaller as 
 cohesion, and have known that thereby the tower of 
 Siloam would one day fall and slay eighteen men; that 
 many a beetling crag would tumble to the ground, and 
 Alpine landslips bring thousands of men to premature de¬ 
 struction. But all those laws, thus made, must coincide 
 with the motive of God and be means for His purpose; 
 they must suit the welfare of the whole creation and of 
 each part thereof. This must be true of the material 
 world which is unconscious and not free; of the animal 
 world which is not free yet partially conscious; of the 
 human world which is conscious and partially free; and 
 of all superhuman worlds with higher degrees of con¬ 
 sciousness and freedom. 
 
 To this universal extent must all things be under the 
 Providence of God; to this extent His constant modes of 
 operation must needs reach out. 
 
 Then if you look at the relation of God to any one 
 thing, say the grub of a Buprestian beetle boring into the 
 bough of the oak I just now spoke of, it seems as if God 
 made the bough of the tree expressly for that little inci¬ 
 pient insect; and the oak for the bough ; and the soil for 
 the oak: the globe, with all its ups and downs, which 
 
188 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 Geology relates, seems made for the soil; and the Uni¬ 
 verse for the globe. So it appears that that little larva of 
 a beetle is the end, or final cause, of the Universe, stands 
 on the top of the world, and has all creation to wait on 
 him, with the God thereof as providential overseer. Then 
 regarding this grub as the one thing the Universe was 
 designed to serve, theologians might say, “ Behold, God's 
 providence is special; He has special legislation to suit 
 this Buprestian grub, and has aimed the whole world at 
 this mark. See how all things prepare for that; the sun 
 and moon are only its forerunners, and in the fulness of 
 time behold a grub !" 
 
 But when the theologian studies the condition of the 
 next grub in an oak-apple, or a gall-nut, or in the nearest 
 bough, he finds them all as well conditioned, and sees that 
 God takes care of the Lymexylon, the Hylecaetus, and the 
 Brenthus as well as of the Buprestian ; that each of them 
 stands just as much on the top of the world, with the 
 universe to wait thereon and God as overseer. You may 
 study all the inhabitants of the oak tree—the toad, the 
 squirrel, the fox, the bear, it is true of them all. Yes, it 
 is true of every special thing in the world, when you fully 
 understand that special thing in all its existence, in each 
 act of its life. We cannot by experiment and observation 
 prove this so clearly in every instance as in some special 
 case, but starting with the Idea of God as infinite, the 
 conclusion follows at once,—that His Providence in refer¬ 
 ence to each particular thing is a perfect Providence. 
 
 Then if you look at the relation of God to the Universe, 
 you see that, as far as you understand it, the whole is as 
 well taken care of and provided for as the most contented 
 grub who lives on the bounty of the oak ; and you say, 
 “ Here is general providence, God acting by general laws 
 for general purposes ; things work well on the whole, and 
 ‘ if now a bubble bursts, and now a world/ it is only a 
 small exception. The attraction of gravitation is a good 
 thing, it keeps the world together; and if the tower of 
 Siloam, thereby falling to the ground, slays eighteen men 
 of Jerusalem, that number is too small to think of, con¬ 
 sidering the myriad millions who are upheld by this same 
 law." 
 
 A law that is perfectly special, providing for each, is 
 
PROVIDENCE. 
 
 189 
 
 also'completely general, providing for all. In other words, 
 it is universal. God^s Providence must be infinite, like 
 His nature. Special and general are only forms in which 
 we conceive of that providence ;—in its relation to a single 
 thing men name it special, to many things, general, while 
 it extends to all and is universal. Accordingly it neither 
 requires nor admits of miraculous makeshifts and provi¬ 
 sional expedients, which theologians think indispensable 
 to their finite God. 
 
 When God created mankind He must have given thereto 
 the powers which are requisite to accomplish all His pur¬ 
 pose. This must be true of mankind as a whole, and of 
 Amos and Habakkuk, of each man as a part thereof; of 
 each man considered individually as an integer, and con¬ 
 sidered socially, or humanly as a fraction of the community, 
 or race, and so a factor in the social, or general human 
 result of the life of mankind. Of course God must fore¬ 
 know what use or abuse would be made of these powers, 
 given in their present proportion, just as well as He knows 
 it now, after all the experience of centuries. Knowing 
 human nature. He must foreknow human history. For 
 example, God must have foreknown that young children 
 would stumble bodily in getting command of their limbs, 
 in learning to walk, and suffer pain in consequence thereof; 
 that older children would stumble spiritually in getting 
 command of their spirits, in learning to think and to will, 
 and suffer in consequence of that; that mankind as a 
 whole would stumble in getting command of the material 
 world, and the development of their human powers; and 
 accordingly there would be suffering from that cause. 
 
 -Now God, inasmuch as He is God, acts providentially 
 in Nature not by miraculous and spasmodic fits and 
 starts, but by regular and universal laws, by constant 
 modes of operation; and so takes care of material things 
 without violating their constitution, acting always accord¬ 
 ing to the nature of the things which He has made. It is 
 a fact of observation that in the material and unconscious 
 world He works by its materiality and unconsciousness, 
 not against them; in the animal world, by its animality 
 and partial consciousness, not against them. Judging 
 from the nature of God and of man, it must be concluded 
 that in the providential government of the human world, 
 
190 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 He acts also by regular and universal laws, by constant 
 inodes of operation; and so takes care of human things 
 without violating their constitution, acting always accord¬ 
 ing to the human nature of man, not against it, working 
 in the human world by means of man's consciousness and 
 partial freedom, not against them. 
 
 Here in the human world God's providence must be as 
 complete and as perfect as there in the material or animal 
 world, in each department acting by the natural laws 
 thereof, not without or against them. As by the very 
 constitution of material or animal things God's provi¬ 
 dence acts by the natural laws thereof—statical, dynam¬ 
 ical, and vital laws; so from the very constitution of 
 man it appears that His perfect Providence must work 
 according to the spiritual laws thereof; for it is not con¬ 
 ceivable either that God should devise laws not adequate 
 for His purpose, or capriciously depart from them if made 
 adequate. Call this Providence special as it applies to 
 Hophni and Phineas, or general as it applies to all the 
 children of Jacob, it is plain that it must be universal, 
 applying to all material, animal, and human things. 
 
 If these things are so, if God be Infinite, then the 
 Hebrew nation is under His universal Providence; but 
 the Amalekites whom the Hebrews overthrew, and the 
 Romans wTio captured the conquerors, and the Goths 
 who vanquished the Romans, are all and equally under 
 the universal Providence of God, who cares equally for 
 them all. Not only are the nations under His Providence 
 in their great acts, but in their little every-day transac¬ 
 tions. Theologians love to think that God was present 
 with the Hebrews in their march out of Egypt, at Mount 
 Sinai; that their exodus and legislation were providen¬ 
 tial. It is all true; but the same Providence watched 
 equally over the English Pilgrims in their exodus ; over 
 the British Parliament making laws at Westminster, the 
 American Congress at Philadelphia and Washington. It 
 is well to see this fact in Hebrew history; well also to go 
 further forward and see it in all human history, and to 
 know that human nature is divine Providence. 
 
 The common theological notion of a special Provi¬ 
 dence, with its special favourites, is full of mischief. 
 Some intensely national writer in the Hebrew Old Testa- 
 
PROVIDENCE. 
 
 191 
 
 ment tells ns tliat Noah, cursed the descendants of Ham 
 for their father’s folly; theologians inform us that in con¬ 
 sequence thereof his descendants are cast-off, outlaws 
 from God. But there are no outlaws from the Infinite 
 Father: to say He casts off any child of His, Hebrew or 
 Canaanite, is as absurd as to say He alters the axioms of 
 mathematics, or the truths of the multiplication table. 
 It is inconsistent with the nature and constitution of 
 the Infinite God; it is as impossible as that one and one 
 should be two thousand, and not two. The African 
 nations, whom the Caucasians enslave, must be as dear 
 to God as the pale tyrants who exploiter them, just as 
 much under His infinite Providence, which will not suffer 
 any ultimate and unrecompensed evil to befall the black 
 or white. 
 
 All individuals then must be equally under the same 
 providential care of the Infinite God; not merely great 
 men, the Charlemagnes, the Cromwells, the Napoleons, 
 “ men of destiny ” as they are called, but the little men; 
 not merely the good men, the heroes of religion, the 
 Moseses and the Jesuses, but the ordinary men, and 
 wicked men, not barely in their great moments, when 
 they feel conscious of God, but in their daily work and 
 humble consciousness. Then it is plain that not only 
 Moses and Jesus are providential men intrusted with a 
 special mission, but you and I and each man are just as 
 much providential men, equally intrusted with a mission, 
 not the less special because it is humble and our powers 
 are weak. The unnatural Spartan father rejects and 
 disdains his idiot girl, leaving her to perish on Mount 
 Taygetus ; the theologian casts off his son, grown up 
 wicked and a public criminal, leaving him to perish un¬ 
 pitied in his jail. But the loving-kindness of the Infinite 
 Father watches over the fool; the tender mercy of the 
 Infinite Mother takes up the criminal when mortal 
 parents let him fall. There is no child of perdition before 
 the Infinite God. 
 
 Now God, as the infinitely perfect, must accomplish 
 His providential function by the laws which belong to 
 the nature and constitution of things; that is, by the 
 normal and constant mode of operation of the natural 
 powers resident in those things themselves; in material 
 
192 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 and animal nature by the forces and laws thereof; in 
 human nature by its forces and its laws. For as Provi¬ 
 dence is the divine execution in time of the eternal 
 divine purpose, it is absurd to say that God supersedes or 
 annuls the means which he primarily designed for that 
 purpose. The classic deist supposed the material world 
 was the work of one God; and the arrangement of 
 human affairs the work of another. Between the two 
 there was a collision and a quarrel, the world-governor 
 must interfere with the work of the world-maker ; Caus¬ 
 ality and Providence were antagonistic. But with the 
 idea of the Infinite God this antithetic dualism vanishes 
 at once away. 
 
 The creative Causality of the Infinite God is likewise 
 conservative and administrative Providence. 
 
 So from the nature of the infinitely perfect God and 
 the consequent perfection of His motive, material, pur¬ 
 pose, and means thereto, it follows that He will not de¬ 
 stroy as infinite Providence what He created as infinite 
 Cause; that He will not violate the laws and break the 
 constitution which He Himself has made. Accordingly, 
 in the midst of God^s Providence working from a per¬ 
 fect motive, for a perfect purpose, and by means of the 
 constitution and nature of man, a Providence extending 
 to all men and to their every act, it is plain that Human 
 Freedom is safe, and the Ultimate Welfare of each man 
 is made sure of, as certain as the existence of God, or 
 of man. 
 
 Atheism tells you of a world without a God, a great 
 going, but a going with none to direct : the popular 
 Theology declares that this going is directed by a finite 
 and changeable God, jealous, revengeful, loving Jacob 
 and hating Esau, working by fits and starts, even in 
 wrath destroying what He made imperfect, beginning 
 anew, and designing to torment the great mass of man¬ 
 kind in everlasting woe — “miserable to have eternal 
 being/'’ 
 
 But with the absolute Religion, a knowledge of God as 
 Infinite, how different do all things appear ! We have 
 confidence, absolute trust in the motive and Purpose 
 of God, absolute trust also in the Means which He has 
 provided in the nature and constitution of things. The 
 
PKOVIDENCE. 
 
 193 
 
 liuman faculties become tlien tlie instruments of Provi¬ 
 dence. Every man is under the protection of God — 
 and all fear of the final result for you, or me, or for man¬ 
 kind, quite vanishes away. The details we know not; 
 experience reveals them a day-full at a time; the result 
 we are sure of. 
 
 Timid men who think that God is miserly and the 
 great Hunker of the Universe, sometimes fear the ma¬ 
 terial world will not hold out; some little “ perturba¬ 
 tions 33 are discovered, now the Earth approaches the 
 Sun for many years, perhaps never twice has described 
 exactly the same track; so they fear the earth will fall 
 into the fire and the world be burned up. But by and 
 by we find that these “ perturbations 33 only disturbed 
 the astronomer, doubtful of God; that to the Cause and 
 Providence of the world they were eternally known, fore- 
 cared for ; that they are normal acts of faithful matter, 
 and so all undisturbed the world rolls on. Constant is 
 balanced by constant. Variable holds variable in check. 
 In her cyclic rotation round the earth the Moon nods; 
 the Earth oscillates in her rhythmic round, while the Sun 
 nods also, as the centre of gravity of the solar system 
 shifts now a little this way, then a little that; nay, the 
 whole Solar System, it is likely, swings a little from side 
 to side : but all this has been foreseen, provided for, 
 balanced by forces which never sleep, and one thing set 
 over against another in such a sort that all work together 
 for good, and the great Chariot of Matter sweeps on 
 through starry space keeping its God-appointed track. 
 Such is the Providence of God in the Universe, not an 
 atom of star-dust is lost out of the sky, not an atom of 
 flower-dust is lost from off this dirty globe ; such are 
 the laws by which God works His functions out in 
 Nature. Ignorance is full of dread and starts at terrors 
 in the dark, trembles at the earthquake and the storm. 
 But science justifies the ways of God to matter, knowing 
 all and loving all, discloses everywhere the immanent and 
 ever active force. Where Science does not understand 
 the mode of action, nor read the details of perfection 
 clearly in the Work—it points to Infinite Perfection in 
 the Author, and we fear no more. 
 
 yol. xi.— Theism , §c. 
 
 13 
 
194 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 IX. 
 
 OF THE ECONOMY OF PAIN AND MISERY UN- 
 DER THE UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 
 
 HE HATH MADE NOTHING IMPERFECT.-ECCLESIASTICUS XLII. 24 . 
 
 Last Sunday I spoke of Providence in its most general 
 form, as the universal execution of the perfect purposes 
 of God by the perfect means He had originally devised. 
 Closely connected with this are two things which demand 
 attention, namely, the phenomena which are called Evil 
 and Sin, and the relation thereof to the causal and provi¬ 
 dential function of the Infinite God. 
 
 To understand this matter of Evil, to know its mode of 
 origin and of operation, and the purpose it serves, con¬ 
 siderable nicety of thought is necessary; and of course 
 considerable precision in the terms which express and 
 define thought. 
 
 The word Evil is ambiguous in its meaning, and has 
 both a wide and a narrow signification. Sometimes it 
 means something painful for which there is no adequate 
 compensation to the sufferer. Sometimes it means some¬ 
 thing painful for which there is an adequate compensation 
 to the sufferer. In this Sermon I will use the word Evil 
 in its general and ambiguous sense, while the two special 
 forms thereof,—the uncompensated and the compensated, 
 —I will call Absolute Evil and Partial Evil. 
 
 So much for the definition of these terms. 
 
 The phenomena called Evil may, for convenience, be 
 distributed into two general forms, or modes :— 
 
 I. Evil which does not come from a conscious and 
 voluntary transgression of a natural law of the Body or 
 the Spirit; that is, Pain and Misery. This may be more 
 minutely designated and distinguished by reference to 
 the part through which we suffer—as physical pain, 
 suffering by the body; spiritual pain, suffering by what 
 is not body. 
 
 II. Evil which comes from a conscious and voluntary 
 
THE ECONOMY OF PAIN. 
 
 195 
 
 transgression of a natural law of tlie body or the spirit; 
 that is Sin, meaning thereby the transgression with all its 
 subjective and objective consequences. 
 
 So much also for the definition of these terms. 
 
 To-day I shall speak only of Pain and Misery; and of 
 them chiefly in the form of Physical Evil. 
 
 In the world of mere Matter, there is no consciousness, 
 no freedom, no will. It is subject wholly to statical and 
 dynamical laws in their various forms; and there is there¬ 
 fore no Pleasure and no Pain. That department of crea¬ 
 tion seems designed merely for a theatre on which ani¬ 
 mated beings are to find scope for action, and whence 
 they may obtain their means of livelihood. I think no 
 man pretends to find any evil there. 
 
 But there is the world of Animals and of Man conscious 
 in higher or lower degrees, and with more or less # of free¬ 
 dom, gifted with partial power of will. Here is the field 
 for Pleasure and Pain—the elements of Happiness and of 
 Misery, the two poles of life. Here occur the phenomena 
 of Evil. 
 
 By Pleasure I mean the state which comes from the 
 fulfilment of the natural conditions of animate existence; 
 from the normal satisfaction of natural desires. By Pain 
 I mean the state which comes from non-fulfilment of those 
 natural conditions; from the absence of the normal satis¬ 
 faction of those desires. Of course I include in that state 
 not only the negative form of evil—lack of the desirable, 
 but the positive form of evil—presence of the hateful. 
 Happiness is prolonged pleasure; Misery is prolonged 
 pain. 
 
 ^ Happiness is great in proportion to the greatness of 
 the faculties which seek their natural satisfaction; and in 
 proportion likewise to the completeness of the satisfaction 
 itself. So there is a qualitative distinction, of the specific 
 modes of Happiness—as it comes from satisfying high or 
 low desires; and a quantitative distinction, of the par¬ 
 ticular degrees thereof—the satisfaction being partial or 
 total. On the other hand. Misery is great or little in pro¬ 
 portion to the faculties and their satisfaction; and there 
 is the same qualitative and quantitative distinction—of 
 modes and degrees thereof. 
 
 Let us now look at some of the phenomena of Physical 
 
 13 * 
 
196 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 Evil. And for clearness* sake let us attend first to the 
 simplest forms thereof, and thence ascend up to the more 
 complex and difficult. 
 
 In the Animal world happiness usually preponderates 
 over misery. The two most powerful groups of instincts 
 in the animal world are those which relate to the pre¬ 
 servation of the individual and the perpetuation of the 
 race. Those instincts are commonly satisfied. Hence 
 comes the general aspect of happiness throughout this 
 department of the universe. Not one mosquito in a 
 million, it is probable, ever tastes of blood; and not one 
 in a million ever suffers from hunger. You never saw 
 a melancholy fly, or a wild squirrel that was unhappy; 
 the elephant, the lion, the monkey, and the crocodile 
 seem to have a good time in the world. Happiness is 
 obvious in the young of animals ; but it is just as actual 
 in the old, only it assumes a graver form, and so is not 
 so apparent to the careless or inexperienced eye: 
 
 “ Thy creatures leap not, but express a feast, 
 
 Where all the guests sit close, and nothing wants.” 
 
 Still some animals, it- is obvious, suffer pain; all are 
 capable of it; perhaps all the higher animals, some time 
 in their lives, are made to suffer. It may be asked, “ Is 
 it possible that there shall be pain in the animal world 
 which the Infinite God has created from perfect motives, 
 of perfect material, for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect 
 means thereto ? ** I answer, Yes. 
 
 I do not pretend that I can clear up all the difficulties 
 in this matter by the inductive mode—of studying the 
 details, and thereby learning their law and showing how 
 each particular form of evil turns into good;—I shall be 
 obliged to refer to the idea of God as Infinite, and from 
 that deduce the value of the function of the special forms 
 of pain and misery. This will often happen. The wisest 
 man is only a child as yet. Philosophy has read but few 
 pages of this great book of Nature, whereof all must be 
 known fully to understand a part. AYlien I know there 
 is an Infinite God, I am sure that His purpose is good and 
 His means adequate. I spontaneously trust therein. 
 This instinctive trust outruns the reflective demonstration 
 of science. Still it is both pleasant and satisfactory to 
 
THE ECONOMY OF PAIN. 
 
 197 
 
 learn tlie use and function of things by themselves, by an 
 inductive study of the facts, and not be constrained to 
 deduce the conclusion merely from the idea of God. In 
 some instances this is not difficult; nay, in the present 
 condition of science, it is not hard to learn the general 
 tendency of things in Nature, and thence get the analogy 
 of the whole to help explain particular parts. But no 
 man I think as yet has been able to explain all these cases 
 by the purely inductive process. To do that he must 
 know all the powers and consequent actions and history 
 of each thing in the universe. 
 
 All finite things must needs be conditioned; the In¬ 
 finite alone is absolutely self-conditioned. Thus the 
 bodies of animals must needs depend on the world about 
 them; wherein are things helpful—meant for the animals 
 they serve, and things harmful—not meant for the animals 
 they hurt. Continued use of the harmful things would 
 destroy the individual and so the race. 
 
 Accordingly the animal frame is made susceptible of 
 Pain from the use of the harmful Substances, and of 
 Delight from the use of the helpful. 
 
 Sometimes this pain comes before the consummation 
 of the use: thus poisonous plants are commonly odious 
 to the eye, or nauseous to the smell, or hateful to the 
 taste of the creature they would injure. Here the 
 momentary pain, the transient disgust, comes as a fore¬ 
 warning against a foe. Poisonous plants, it is said, have 
 somewhat in their structure which warns off the animals 
 they would else destroy, some special ugliness telegraph¬ 
 ing to the senses the unfitness of the thing for use. 
 PThe Devil,” says a chemist, “is always chained.” If 
 not he is painted black, to scare away the creatures he 
 would molest. How nicely the sheep and horses avoid 
 all noxious things. Lobelia would kill horses; the 
 pungent plant reads the riot-act of Nature as soon as it is 
 tasted and warns the offenders of their transgression. 
 The benevolent motive and purpose of this form of pain is 
 obvious at once. 
 
 Then there are Modes of Action which are possible to 
 an animal, but which would be fatal if persisted in : these 
 also are attended by pain. A young rabbit heedlessly 
 running through briars tears his tender skin and smarts ; 
 
198 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 and so avoids this rending of his coat. If the pain did 
 not warn him, he would tear his skin to pieces and lose 
 his life in seeking to save it. A dog running over sharp 
 stones would soon wear out his feet; the pain warns him 
 of the peril before it is too late. If he were to lose a 
 limb he must go limp and lame all his life, for another leg 
 will not shoot out to take the place of the one he has 
 wasted and used up. The suffering makes him careful; 
 he keeps his feet, and goes four-legged all his days. 
 
 The lobster and the crab have a thick and nearly in¬ 
 sensible shell, for protection against ravenous enemies ; 
 but such is the nature of their covering that their limbs 
 are brittle and easily rent off, another soon taking the 
 place of that which is lost. The animal suffers but little 
 pain from that injury. With him it is no great hardship 
 to lose a limb which is so easily supplied anew. But the 
 lobster cannot bear any great change of temperature, 
 such is his constitution ; it would destroy his life. So 
 his shell is a good conductor of heat, and he is keenly 
 sensitive to the alternations of heat and cold. This sensi¬ 
 tiveness and the pain it brings if he goes out of his pro¬ 
 per temperature, keep him always in such places as suit 
 his organization, in a temperature congenial to his nature, 
 in waters which also supply his food. The dog can bear 
 a great range of temperature, clad in his non-conducting 
 coat, which also accommodates itself to the changes of 
 climate. Variations of heat and cold are not painful to 
 him. The dog’s sensitiveness of touch and the lobster’s 
 sensitiveness to heat and cold bring pain to both ; but the 
 suffering keeps the lobster in his place, and preserves the 
 limbs of the dog safe and sound. Give the dog the lob¬ 
 sters insensibility to pain from the sense of touch, he 
 would run, or fight, till he wore his legs off of his body; 
 give the lobster the dog’s sensitiveness to this form of 
 pain, and living as he does in the ceaseless wash of 
 the waters, with brittle limbs, his life would be a tor¬ 
 ment while it lasted, and in torment would it soon end. 
 Give the dog the lobster’s sensitiveness to heat and cold, 
 he would be miserable most of the time and soon die; 
 give the lobster the dog’s indifference to temperature, 
 the currents of the sea would soon sweep him away from 
 his food, from his natural position, and he and his race 
 
THE ECONOMY OF PAIN. 
 
 199 
 
 would speedily perish. The pain of both is only adequate 
 to keep each in his proper place: it is the tether by 
 which they are bound out and kept from harm. 
 
 Such is the general use of this form of pain in the 
 animal world; it is a natural warning against ruin, a 
 sentinel for ever mounting guard over the natives of the 
 earth, the sea, and air, giving early admonition when 
 danger draws nigh. 
 
 If you look widely and carefully, you will find there is 
 always the most nice and cunning adaptation of the pain 
 to the end it is to answer. Is a condition of existence 
 neglected, an instinct left without its satisfaction; is a 
 wrong mode of action resorted to, or improper food 
 eaten, uneasiness and pain warn the offender of his mis¬ 
 take, and drive him from it. This pain is so effectual 
 that the master-instincts of an animal become irresistible : 
 only external violence can check the rush of Nature, and 
 if driven out she soon comes back. How uneasy are the 
 birds of passage at the time of their annual migrations ! 
 Their pain warns them against the ruin which a northern 
 winter, or a southern summer, would bring upon the 
 Swallow, or the Stork. 
 
 The pain which comes from Fear is of the same re¬ 
 medial character. The Hare has a feeble body; a rude 
 touch drives her life out of the thin walls of its habitation. 
 She is the natural prey of the hawk, the fox, and the 
 wild-cat; even the mink and the weasel easily master her. 
 See how she is furnished with quick, capacious, and vari¬ 
 able ears, with prominent and ready eyes; nimble to start 
 and swift to run. She is cautious, timid, and fearful to a 
 ^remarkable degree; she runs from any danger, facing 
 nothing that is formidable. She has no power to resist 
 any of her natural enemies. Fear is her sentinel. When 
 her last hour comes, she dies almost at a touch from her 
 enemy, apparently with little pain. Her chief suffering 
 is from fear, and that is only adequate to attach her life 
 to her. 
 
 So far as I have seen, or read, this is true in all depart¬ 
 ments of animal life—the ordinary mode of death, though 
 often a violent one, is attended with very little pain; and 
 the suffering from fear is only sufficient to keep the 
 creatures on their guard. The bull is strong and tough, 
 
200 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 able to endure a severe contest with a powerful enemy. 
 He is constitutionally courageous, and marches forth to 
 meet the danger which threatens him. The timidity of 
 the hare would be ridiculous in the bull, and his fearless¬ 
 ness fatal to her. 
 
 Then there is the pain which animals suffer at the Loss 
 of their Mates, or their Young. You see examples of this 
 in all animals that match in pairs, and guard and protect 
 their little ones. The monogamous robin mourns at the 
 loss of his mate, or at the plunder of his nest. The 
 ferocious white bear, it is said, moans like a human 
 mother at the loss of her cubs. The suffering of sheep 
 and cows when their children are torn from them, is too 
 well known and very sad. But this pain, with the attend¬ 
 ant fear of the loss, is only sufficient to lead the mates to 
 protect each other, the parents to watch over and defend 
 their child. This fear often creates a certain heroism in 
 the bosoms of animals which are otherwise cowardly. 
 The hen is commonly a garrulous and restless busybody, 
 bustling about all day, a weak and timid animal, fleeing 
 from every trifling danger. When the maternal instinct 
 moves her to brood over the eggs which contain her un¬ 
 seen progeny, how all is changed ! The restless busybody 
 sits silent and patient as a stone, all day incumbent on 
 her nest. An extraordinary amount of heat is developed 
 in her body. Her timidity vanishes; she becomes 
 courageous, and rushes out to defend her nest, and still 
 more to protect her new-born brood. She defies danger, 
 and will sacrifice her life rather than desert her little 
 flock. If the brood is lost, her torment is exceeding great. 
 After her fledglings are grown up they become strangers 
 to her; her anxiety and her courage vanish out of sight, 
 or sleep as a reserved power, till another occasion calls 
 them forth. Here pain is the ally of affection, the family 
 girdle to keep her little household together. In animals 
 which require no parental care, there is no fear of this 
 sort, no affection for it to guard. The salmon and the 
 herring drop their embryo in the appropriate spot, 
 leaving it to the care of Nature. After the young calf 
 has outgrown the need of its mother's care, to her it is 
 but one of the common herd; the feeling of kindred is 
 extinct. 
 
THE ECONOMY OF PAIN. 
 
 201 
 
 In all these cases the conservative function of these 
 .four forms of pain is evident at once, as soon as the facts 
 are made known. And the balance between the pro¬ 
 visional pain and the final purpose it is to serve is so ex¬ 
 actly sustained, that it is a delight to the thinking man to 
 see the ways of Providence with these little children of 
 the common Father. 
 
 “ Each creature hath a wisdom for his good : 
 
 The pigeons feed their tender offspring, crying, 
 
 When they are callow; hut withdraw their food 
 
 When they are fledge, that Need may teach them flying.” 
 
 Still there are sufferings in the animal world for which 
 I can see no present recompense. Some lose a limb in 
 youth and suffer all their life; others are scantily fed. 
 Those in the hands of man are often maimed, ill-treated, 
 and hindered from developing their nature as animals, 
 and so made to suffer. Man “ improves ” the breeds of 
 cattle. He does not always improve them as horses, 
 cows, or swine, but only as animated tools for his service. 
 Sometimes he only exploiters them. His “ racers ” and 
 “ draft horses,” his “ Ayrshires ” and “ North-Devons,” 
 his “ Merinoes ” and ce Saxonies,” are as much works of 
 human invention as the spinning-jenny and the printing- 
 press. Very useful contrivances for mam’s purpose, they 
 • are less horses, oxen, and sheep, it seems to me, than 
 were their savage progenitors thousands of years ago. 
 They have suffered a change. They cannot defend them¬ 
 selves if turned out in the forests, nor find their food in 
 the wild where the Aurochs rejoices to live. But I doubt 
 that this change is attended with any necessary unhappi- 
 v ness. The domestic dog seems to me quite as happy an 
 animal as the wild dog. If we take into the account all 
 the animals connected with man, with or without his con¬ 
 sent, they have far more happiness than misery. The 
 horse and the cow seem in part designed for the use 
 and service of man, and may perform that service with 
 no unnatural harm to themselves. Their nature is ex¬ 
 ceeding pliant under the plastic hand of man; the artificial 
 forms of the cow-kind seem to me as happy as the wild 
 forms. 
 
 But still there is pain and misery in the animal world. 
 
202 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 Now howsoever Paul may interpret the Hebrew Bible, it 
 is plain the Infinite God “ doth take care for oxen.” The 
 injuries of a whale that in his childhood gets his jaw 
 broken, and goes all his life with a twisted mouth, a de¬ 
 formed and most unlucky whale; the misfortunes of a 
 horse owned by some master more beastly than the brute, 
 must have all been known by God at the creation, pro¬ 
 vided for and compensated in some way. The use of 
 animal pain in the majority of cases, it is easy to discern, 
 and to see that it has a benevolent function to accomplish. 
 The general analogy of Nature leads to the inference—it 
 is no more,—that it must likewise be so in these excep¬ 
 tional cases. But from the Idea of the Infinite God we 
 know it must be so; that this exceptional pain must not 
 be absolute evil to the individual sufferer, but disciplinary 
 —leading to some good else not attainable ; and so com¬ 
 pensated by the ultimate welfare which it helps attain. I 
 do not pretend to know how this is brought about; I 
 know not the middle terms which intermediate between 
 the misery I see and the blessedness I imagine. I only 
 know that the ultimate welfare must come to the mutilated 
 beast overtasked by some brutal man. If it be not so 
 then the universe is not a perfect world; it is imperfect 
 in this particular, that it does not serve the natural pur¬ 
 pose of these creatures, who go incomplete and suffering. 
 If God be Infinite then He must make and administer the 
 world from perfect motives, for a perfect purpose, and as 
 a perfect means,—all tending to the ultimate and absolute 
 blessedness of each thing He directly or mediately creates; 
 the world must -be administered so as to achieve that 
 purpose for each thing. Else God has made some things 
 from a motive and for a purpose not benevolent, or as a 
 means not adequate to the benevolent purpose. These 
 suppositions are at variance with the nature of the Infinite 
 God. 
 
 I do not see how this benevolent purpose can be ac¬ 
 complished unless all animals are immortal and find 
 retribution in another life. I know many will think it 
 foolish, and some impious, to speak of the Immortality of 
 Animals. But without this supposition I cannot “vindi¬ 
 cate the ways of God ” to the horse and the ox. To me 
 the immortality of all animals appears in harmony with 
 
THE ECONOMY OF PAIN. 
 
 203 
 
 tlie analogy of Nature, rational, benevolent, and beautiful. 
 Many of the arguments for human immortality apply as 
 well to the case of the bee and the elephant as to John 
 and Paul. The argument from consciousness is here out 
 of place—as man knows nothing of the consciousness of 
 the sheep and swine. There are but two arguments which 
 I have ever heard brought against the immortality of 
 animals—one is drawn from the selfishness of man, who 
 wants a monopoly of all desirable things, and so would 
 shut beast and bird out of heaven; the other comes from 
 the common notion of the Deity, that He is a mean and 
 stingy God, making heaven little and hell large. Let 
 both pass for what they are worth. If the Spanish In¬ 
 quisitor and the American Kidnapper can be thought 
 immortal and capable of eternal happiness, I see not how 
 we can deny eternal life to any Abyssinian Hyaena, or to 
 a Rattlesnake from Kentucky, far less ugly and venomous. 
 It seems to me that philosophical theology confirms the 
 instinctive nature of the “ poor Indian,” 
 
 “ Who thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
 
 His faithful dog shall bear him company.” 
 
 If this be so, then pain or misery in the animal world 
 is not an Absolute Evil; in the majority of cases it is a 
 beneficent sentinel to warn creation of the approach of 
 ruin, and in the exceptional cases is a servant that by 
 some unknown way conducts to bliss, 
 
 “Making a chiming of a passing hell.” 
 
 In the W orld of Man the affair is much more compli¬ 
 cated ; but if the animal world be rightly understood, 
 this other is not difficult to comprehend. The amount of 
 individual freedom is so much greater with men than with 
 animals, that we commonly say, man is free—self-ruled, 
 —while beasts are bound, ruled wholly by some objective 
 force, tools and not agents. Mam’s tether is indeed much 
 longer than theirs; and his margin of possible oscillation 
 is much greater. For man having powers so much more 
 various, and consequently an immediate destination so 
 much nobler, stands, in general, in more complicated 
 relations with Nature, and the individual with his species. 
 
204 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 and is subject to a greater variety of conditions. Ac¬ 
 cordingly there is with him so much the more room for 
 generic and individual caprice, for violating the condi¬ 
 tions of welfare and of material existence ; so much more 
 room for pain and misery. This is so with mankind, and 
 with each man, at every particular stage of his conscious 
 existence. 
 
 But in addition to this statical complication of his 
 nature, man has other dynamical complications which 
 take place in his historical development. Man is pro¬ 
 gressive ; each man advancing not only from babyhood 
 to manhood,—for that is so with the lion and the lobster, 
 —but also from manhood till death. Not only is each 
 man thus progressive as an individual, but each nation as 
 a people, and mankind as a race. Amid the fluctuations 
 of individuals the nation rolls on from its babyhood to its 
 manhood; and amid the fluctuations of states and families, 
 of nations, the mighty Stream of Humanity sweeps on to 
 its destination, bearing in its eternal bosom every human 
 excellence which any individual or any people, has de¬ 
 veloped and brought to light. 
 
 At every step the individual, the nation, and the race 
 are subject to the natural conditions of personal, social, 
 and general human welfare; conditions which are rigorous 
 and unavoidable. All this development of the individual 
 and the race is progress by experiment; for while the 
 crystal is formed, and the tree grows, by processes which 
 have their origin solely in the Infinite Cause; while each 
 individual lion and the whole lion-kind grow up with little 
 conscious thought, or personal will, the individual man, 
 and the man-kind do to a considerable extent shape their 
 own forms of being. This progression by experiment 
 involves both experiments that fail and experiments that 
 succeed. The failure brings pain; if long continued, 
 misery. This is so with the merely speculative experi¬ 
 ment, with thought: the faulty demonstration, “the sum 
 which will not come out right,” pains the boy at school; 
 the halting tragedy racks the feeble-minded poet; nav, 
 the imperfections in the works of Homer and H5schylus, 
 of Dante and Shakspeare, tortured those mighty bards. 
 Still more is this the case with practical experiments, 
 with deeds : the little girl, learning the limits between 
 
THE ECONOMY OE PAIN. 
 
 205 
 
 the Me and Not-me, mistakes and burns her fingers in the 
 candle^s flame; the great nation learning the limits be¬ 
 tween the Just and the Unjust, or the Expedient and 
 Unprofitable, mistakes and loses millions of men. Ne¬ 
 cessity confines the beasts within a narrow road where 
 instinct impels them on; they cannot wander much. 
 Freedom opens for us a long and wide field, with oppor¬ 
 tunity for pain and misery. The child makes unsuccess¬ 
 ful experiments in becoming a man; the man in reaching 
 after more manhood; mankind, in all our history,makes 
 experiments that fail; all are painful. Such are the con¬ 
 ditions of our human lot, conditions which to the nature 
 of a finite, progressive, and free being seem as much 
 indispensable as gravitation to atoms of matter represent¬ 
 ing the primary law. 
 
 The actual amount of pain and misery is far greater 
 in the human world than in the animal world. It seems 
 to me greater in proportion to their respective quantity 
 of being. The Caucasian baby is a grief to her mother 
 before she rejoices that a child is born; he is a torment 
 to himself before he has his first teeth; a trouble to his 
 father in growing up. Man has all the animal sources of 
 pain, and many more peculiar to himself, springing from 
 his more mountainous quantity of being, its nicer quality, 
 and the greater complication thereof. The grown animal 
 is not capable of progressive development; has no ex¬ 
 periments to make, no failures to mourn over, nor suffer 
 from. The race of animals makes no failures, no pro¬ 
 gress, no experiment. No lion in Africa weeps for his 
 prodigal son. The tigress is not crossed in love. No 
 patrician game-laws hinder the fox from “ free warren ” 
 everywhere. The hippopotamus has no feudal superior; 
 the wild-cat has eminent domain in the woods* “ free fish¬ 
 ing and fowling. - ” There is no despotic Nicholas or 
 Ferdinand to torture the race of wild swine, with un¬ 
 reasonable institutes hedging in the liberty of Nature. 
 No revolutionists, no red-republicans, jostle the rulers of 
 the woods and seas; no progressive Kossuths and Maz- 
 zinis overturn the oligarchy of white or black elephants, 
 and form a democracy among the cattle. There is no pain 
 from bad institutions,—no failure to have good ones. No 
 timid owl or monkey is ever alarmed at the “ Spread of 
 
206 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 Infidelity.” The ravens that wander crying for lack of 
 meat and finding it as they fly, have no fear of eternal 
 damnation, no “ Adam’s fall” to make their faces gather 
 blackness; the “ federal head” of the crows never “ fell.” 
 There is no popular theology, no atheism, with the 
 pigeons and blackbirds. 
 
 The aspect of the world of animals is one of happiness. 
 What a contrast between that and the condition of man ! 
 The bob-oMink in the grass under my window seeking 
 food for her little nest-full of promises, is happy as a bird 
 can be; her joy runs over in delightful song. Her beauty 
 of sound meets the morning beauty of light, and what a 
 psalm they sing, the sunrise and the bird, to eye and ear! 
 Compare her with the mothers in the houses all about me, 
 and in the great cities of the world, the mothers who 
 groan in labour—of beggary, of prostitution, of drunken¬ 
 ness, of many-liveried sin ! Not one mosquito in a million 
 suffers from hunger; of the thousand million men how 
 many will die outright of starvation; how many go 
 stooping and feeble for want, and will at last be thereby 
 shuffled off the stage of life ! How contentedly this cater¬ 
 pillar makes ready for her transfiguration, one day to 
 come out fair as the light with more than mythical re¬ 
 splendence. How sadly the seamstresses of Boston, New 
 York, and London, prepare their garments of transfigura¬ 
 tion—the shroud which painful fingers are so long in 
 making ready for death, who is always in sight, yet so 
 slow in coming ! What an odds between the Song of a 
 Cocoon and “the Song of a Shirt! ” This grasshopper, 
 
 “ Green little loiterer in the sunny grass, 
 
 Catching his heart up at the feel of June,” 
 
 is never to seek for his daily bread. Yonder cow takes 
 no thought for raiment; the beaver is not afraid of being 
 warned out of his lodgings and turned upon the world, his 
 wife and children brought to the side-walk; the pains of 
 parturition and dentition, with that troop of diseases 
 which crowd about the cradle of human infancy, are all 
 unknown to the wild camel, the bear, and the elephant. 
 The buffalo is never concerned for the raiment of his sons 
 and daughters, clad and shod in Nature's best. No wild¬ 
 cat has any difficulty in training up her sons; the horse- 
 
THE ECONOMY OF PAIN. 
 
 207 
 
 leech has no concern for the marriage of his two pro¬ 
 verbial daughters. Every oyster is contented with his 
 own “bank.” There are no changes of tariff to perplex 
 the free-traders of sea, and land, and sky. No protective 
 system is repealed to the damage of the insect-manufac¬ 
 turers—of the bee, or the spider, or the silk-worm. The 
 Providence of God is the great Protective-system for all 
 these children of the world. The universal laws-—they 
 never change. The aristocracy of the ant-hill does not 
 exploiter the common people; not a queen bee feared a 
 crisis in “ the year of revolutions.” Compare a hive of 
 bees—in woods or garden,—or a family of beavers, with 
 Boston or Lowell, with Paris or Lyons; and what an 
 odds betwixt the welfare of the two ! Consider the 
 poverty, the want, the ignorance, the disease, the drunk¬ 
 enness, and vice, and crime, and shortened life, which 
 make up the misery of the poor; consider the anxiety and 
 servility, the disappointed ambition and defeated affec¬ 
 tions, which so mar the welfare of the thriving and the 
 rich; and what a difference there is between this human 
 misery and the contentment of the beast;—a difference 
 which, at first sight, seems out of proportion to the dif¬ 
 ferent degrees of power and of freedom—misery in¬ 
 creasing as the square of the amount of freedom ! The 
 whole world of Nature does not furnish a St Giles parish 
 for the beasts ; not a human city is without one ! 
 
 Still, omitting nothing and extenuating nothing, it 
 seems to me the proportion of misery in the world is 
 overrated by benevolent men. Happiness, contentment 
 of the actual wants, surpasses unhappiness, that discon¬ 
 tented hunger after what cannot be reached. It is so in 
 convents and asylums, with the poor in large towns like 
 London and New York,—such is the human power of 
 accommodation to circumstances. Plastic man is pliant 
 also. Take any settlement of men, Esquimaux, Pawnees, 
 Turks, Chinese, Gaboons, Bushmans, Britons, happiness 
 far surpasses misery. Go into the lowest parts of Boston, 
 or London, to the abodes of want and crime, it is so 
 there. True it is a low form of happiness, and you 
 mourn at so much contentment with so little welfare. 
 
 Yet there is pain and misery of the saddest sort. It 
 comes from non-fulfilment of the conditions of animal life 
 
208 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 —from want of food, of fire, air, and water, of shelter and 
 raiment; from sickness, fear, grief; from the lack, or the 
 loss, of objects of passion and affection; from defeated 
 ambition, defeated love; from want of culture—of one 
 or all the faculties. 
 
 All this must have been foreseen; it is a part of the 
 scheme of things—the calculated consequence of man’s 
 ignorance, or want of self-adaptation to the world of 
 matter. It can be no astonishment to God. Yet at first 
 sight it appears as if there was an imperfection in God’s 
 work. This misery, which haunts mankind, seems a dis¬ 
 grace to the world and a standing impeachment of the 
 Providence of God. “ Call this a perfect world,” says 
 some kind-hearted man, “ a perfect means for a perfect 
 purpose ? Under the Providence of the Infinite God is 
 it!—Then whence this vermin pain which bores into 
 every house and every heart ? The world is full of Evil, 
 Absolute Evil; this toad, ugly and venomous, squats, full 
 of poison, in every garden which man plants. Could not 
 God make a world without Misery ? ” 
 
 Well, the finite must needs be conditioned—its exist¬ 
 ence one of limitation. The question is whether the 
 present condition contains any absolute, or any needless 
 partial Evil. As it was shown before, pain is incidental 
 to the development of a finite being with even a small 
 amount of freedom. But as man is more free, and in¬ 
 dividually and generically progressive, a larger amount of 
 pain is incidental to his existence. But look at some 
 conjectural schemes of human life. 
 
 Suppose man had been made with no capability of pro¬ 
 gress either of the individual, from manhood to old age, 
 or of the race, from the beginning to the end; and put 
 in the rudest condition of the lowest tribe of men—of the 
 Bushmans, or the Patagonians; but had all his wants as 
 completely and as easily met as the oysters in the waters 
 of Virginia, so that the whole world was a perpetual Point 
 Comfort to each man; that there was no pain, no possi¬ 
 bility of suffering; so that he had no desire which could 
 lead him astray at all, no freedom to go astray, but by 
 his organization was bound fast to the actual,—would this 
 be a better state of things ? Nobody thinks so. 
 
 Suppose this unprogressive and painless creature ele- 
 
THE ECONOMY OF PAIN. 
 
 209 
 
 vated to tlie highest degree of our present civilization 
 —to the intellectual condition of the philosophers who 
 make up the Academies of Paris, of Berlin, and of Lon¬ 
 don ; surrounded with all the circumstances which suit 
 that stage of development; as fully satisfied as the oyster, 
 and as incapable of any progress—individual or generic ; 
 —incapable of pain; without freedom of further develop¬ 
 ment ; by his organization bound fast to the actual, no 
 ideal beauty—intellectual, moral, affectional, or religious, 
 —hovering about his head; and that an undisturbed 
 satisfaction filled up the consciousness of man.. Would 
 that be a better state of things than the present condition 
 of Germany, France, and England—better as a finality 
 than the present as a stage of progress in the ever-un¬ 
 folding growth of man ? No thinker will think so. For 
 those philosophers are as far from a full enjoyment of all 
 the powers of their human nature almost as the Bush¬ 
 mans. 
 
 We are made with a nature which demands continual 
 progress ; the instinct of development is amazingly power¬ 
 ful in the race. Mankind is not content to stand still, 
 stopping at the Bushmam’s elevation, or at the stage 
 where the modern philosopher gathers into his compre¬ 
 hensive mind the riches of present human conscious¬ 
 ness. The Ideal haunts the human race, and through 
 eminent tongues calls out to man continually, “ Onward, 
 onward.” All advance is progression by experiment; 
 many an attempt fails of its end—the human child is 
 born with pain. But who is there that does not see 
 that man has a higher, nobler destiny than the creatures 
 which have no freedom,—bound to the present ? 
 
 Suppose man made capable of progress, and—as finite 
 —of experiments that fail, and yet incapable of pain. 
 Would that be a good exchange? Look at some ex¬ 
 amples. A man will not eat when he is hungry : suppose 
 God by a transient miracle, or a permanent law, forbid 
 the pain which now comes from lack of food; the man 
 would die of inanition, die without warning. Suppose he 
 would eat when not hungry, or in excessive quantity, and 
 no pain followed this violation of the natural rule of tem¬ 
 perance ; he would die of repletion, die unwarned of his • 
 peril. Suppose he would eat what was harmful, things 
 
 YOL. xi. — Theism, $c. • 14 
 
210 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 not meant for human food; would it be well if there were 
 no disgust of any sense, to notify the man before the mis¬ 
 take, no torture in any member to warn him of the error ? 
 Would it be well to have an amount of pain not adequate 
 to remind him of the peril ? 
 
 What if a man would not work even for the most needful 
 things; and God, like a foolish mother, to spare him the 
 present consequences of laziness, either by special fleet¬ 
 ing miracles, or by general and permanent law, gave him 
 all the desirable outward things which now come from 
 the long-continued toil of men. What if all things came 
 at his desire; he 
 
 “ — need but wish and instantly obeyed, 
 
 Fair ranged the dishes rose and thick the glasses played ! ” 
 
 Why what a world it would be, where “wishes were 
 horses and beggars might ride; ” a universal lubberland, 
 peopled by beggars on horseback riding after their 
 proverbial wont! If man lived he would be a suckling 
 for ever, never attaining the dignity of stripling. But 
 he would not live, thus conditioned only by his wishes. 
 This suckling of caprice, like a kite without a string, 
 would soon come to the ground, unwarned by any pain 
 till death finished him. A child not conditioned by its 
 parents, is a spoiled child, father and mother only special 
 providences of ruin. A school of children with no school¬ 
 master to regulate them with “ Thou shalt,” and “ Thou 
 shalt not,” what a hurly-burly is it of most unprofitable 
 going which yet goes nowhere ! A young man suddenly 
 made master of an unexpected fortune, and so presented 
 with the freedom of riches he had never won, is always 
 brought thereby in great peril, and commonly finds the 
 excessive fortune a misfortune. 
 
 Imagine men so active that they will toil all the time, 
 and neither rest nor sleep ; would it be wise and well to 
 leave them with no possibility of pain to warn them before 
 the frame lay there worn out and dead ? Suppose they 
 wrought by night and not by day, would it be an improve¬ 
 ment on the present state of things if no inconvenience 
 and no pain attended the capricious violation of Nature's 
 law, until death ended the mistake ? 
 
 Suppose a man worked at the right time and in the 
 
THE ECONOMY OF PAIN. 
 
 » 
 
 211 
 
 
 right proportion, but worked wrong, against the nature 
 of things ; that he planted his pear-trees with the roots 
 up and the branches down; or set the roots in husks of 
 corn, in straw, in dried moss, in the feathers of birds, or 
 the hair of beasts; and made his own bed out of moist 
 rich earth, every night covering up the limbs in that. 
 Suppose God should alter the constitution of things to 
 suit our man, so that his accommodating pear-tree grew 
 and bore fruit, the roots up, the branches down i or grew 
 out of husks and hay, hair and feathers; and that his 
 body did not suffer from sleeping wrapped up in garden 
 mould; that the pear and the man changed beds capri¬ 
 ciously and God made the world accommodate the silly 
 whim : would that be an improvement, better than the 
 present rule —“ As you make your bed so you must lie ? ” 
 
 What if a man put things to the wrong use—making 
 wheaten bricks of the corn he grew, piling them into 
 walls for his house, and roofing over this paste-board 
 palace with tiles of bread ; would it be a misfortune if the 
 next storm soaked through his roof and walls, and brought 
 this whole mass of unleavened bread upon the head of its 
 maker ? 
 
 What if he made his bread of wood and sand and clay, 
 not of corn, and God interfered with our booby and 
 allowed him to suffer no pain for his stupidity ? Would 
 that be a good plan ? What a school the world would be 
 with no regulation but the finite caprice of each John 
 and Jane ! 
 
 If a man provides the proper articles for food and shel¬ 
 ter, but gets them in insufficient quantity, or of a quality 
 which will soon perish, or lives in a spot which is un¬ 
 healthy ; would it be well for God to twist the material 
 world so as to accommodate the human folly and let him off 
 with a whole skin ? Should you think the world well 
 made if it altered to suit the caprice of each man in it; 
 and if every whimsey had a universal right of way over 
 all the world—Nature a “ servitude to nonsense ! If a 
 man makes a cart to carry himself and his chattels from 
 place to place, and makes it ill, or drives it badly, if it 
 breaks down when overloaded, or turns over when one 
 wheel is driven into a ditch and the other into the air, and 
 if the man be hurt and his goods spilled out, is there a 
 
 14 * 
 
212 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 flaw in the world, think you, because he suffers chagrin at 
 the failure, and pain by the bruise ? When his carriage, 
 ill made, overladen, driven badly, was about to overturn, 
 suppose its owner prayed to all the saints in heaven, you 
 would not think it a kindness in the Infinite God to alter 
 the laws of Nature to suit this ill conduct of a cart. Would 
 you have the man turn out for gravitation, or have God 
 push the planet to the wall to let our lubber’s cart go by ? 
 
 A boy makes a kite with a frame of iron, and planks it 
 over with live-oak. The thing would sink in water ; shall 
 God alter the constitution of the world and make it float 
 in air f or leave the boy to profit by his chagrin, and try 
 till he learns the laws of Nature and makes a kite to corre¬ 
 spond ? If a man gets displeased with this planet, and 
 wishes to ride round the sun in his own gig, is God to pave 
 the road and furnish him a horse ? Shall God give the 
 new moon to every baby who cries for it? The girl pricks 
 her fingers in learning to sew—shall God make the hand 
 as senseless as the needle to spare little miss the use of 
 her wits ? 
 
 A man sails the sea, he gets a poor and leaky ship, ill- 
 moulded, ill-built, ill-rigged, and overloaded too, manned 
 and mastered badly; he takes no pains to learn the coast 
 he sails from, or to; little care to look out for rocks, or 
 shoals, but drives up towards land, all heedless, in a storm ; 
 then, when his crazy hulk is in imminent peril, he and 
 his miserable crew—all ignorant and half drunk—for 
 safety pray lustily to God. Is it a hard thing that he gets 
 the ocean for answer ; that his planks go to pieces and he 
 is strangled in the deep; or if with much ado he treads 
 the waters under him and comes alive to land, has he a 
 right to complain of hard usage because the fatherly Pro¬ 
 vidence did not empty the waters out of the sea to save a 
 foolish man the trouble of thinking: ? 
 
 In making the world, what if God had fashioned it so 
 that shipwreck was impossible; that when a vessel ap¬ 
 proached a rock, of her own accord she wore off, or tacked 
 and stood away; that it was needless for the- mariner to 
 study navigation, or seamanship, or the art of building 
 ships, but every tub would sail perfectly, with any re¬ 
 quisite speed and burthen, and find its own way to any 
 destined haven; so that you need only write thereon. 
 
THE ECONOMY OF PAIN. 
 
 213 
 
 “ Bound for London/* and put off from land, and tlie craft 
 found its way there as surely as a stone to the bottom of 
 a well when dropped in at the top; that a mariner need 
 take no thought at all, for God tempered the wind to the 
 sailor self-shorn of his wits ! Would that be so good a 
 scheme as the present one which demands' stout ships— 
 built with all the art of human science to correspond with 
 the Nature which God has made,—prudent masters, care¬ 
 ful men, a compass in the binnacle, a chart and chronometer 
 in the cabin, lighthouses along the coast, scrutinizing 
 surveyors to scan the heavens, to search the bosom of the 
 sea and learn to trace the footsteps of the storm, and so 
 be served by wind and tide, by star and sea and land ? 
 The shipwreck brings loss of goods and loss of life, pain 
 to full many a heart; but you see what all this suffering 
 means. If I, standing on the shore, saw a vessel about 
 * to go to pieces in a storm, dashed on a rock, had I the 
 power, doubtless in my human weakness and ignorance, I 
 should rend the rock in sunder, or should chide the sea, 
 and held it back ere it should swallow down the ship, 
 strangling such hopeful life. But at the creation the In¬ 
 finite God knew all the powers of the sea, the storm, the 
 future ship, the men therein; foreknew their history, and 
 doubtless arranged all well. For answer to our special 
 prayers comes the eternal action of the universal law. 
 Thus we learn by the elements; the winds are our minis¬ 
 ters, the sea not only a constant ferryman, that huge St 
 Christopher, fetching and carrying from land to land, but 
 a teacher also. Yea, all Nature is a a Schoolmaster to 
 bring us to Christ.** 
 
 What sufferings have we seen of late years on emigrant 
 ships, crowded with passengers without fire, water, or 
 even air, heedless, ill-fed, unclean ! What if God “ inter¬ 
 posed ** at the prayer of some mortal and allowed no man 
 to suffer from cold, hunger, or ship - fever ? Would that 
 be better than to leave man to suffer till the nations 
 learned the laws of Nature, and enforced them by statutes 
 of their own, and then came safe across the sea, not sick, 
 not cold, not wet ? God makes the elements as perfect 
 Cause, administers them as perfect Providence, and made 
 the mind of man one element whereby to work out human 
 welfare. Shall not that factor perform its function ? 
 
214 
 
 PROVIDENCE. . 
 
 Men build iron roads, and put thereon a train of iron 
 cars, drawn by the iron horse. The axles are iron, the 
 wheels iron; the friction is great, the draught is difficult, 
 the metal wears out. What chagrin of engineers, what 
 complaint of shareholders! Shall God, by permanent 
 law, or fleeting miracle, alter the constitution of things to 
 abate the friction; or leave men to study the structure of 
 their own limbs, and make an artificial cartilage of com¬ 
 pounded metals, and moisten it with such synovial liquor 
 as science can devise, and so save the wear and tear of 
 their machine ? If a stone gets in the boy^s shoe, shall 
 God all at once soften the stone, or harden the foot; or 
 shall he leave the boy to suffer till he shakes the annoy¬ 
 ance from his own shoe and walks off erect and easy ? If 
 God give adequate intellect at first, is he to supersede 
 the necessity of using it ? What a Providence that would 
 be, at cross purposes with itself! 
 
 Here is a lazy young man, yet very exorbitant; he 
 wants the power of riches, the honour of office, the enjoy¬ 
 ment of high culture—the distinction of all the three; 
 but he devotes himself only to his moustache, his cigar, 
 and his dress. Is it the fault of Providence that he con¬ 
 tinues a most uncomfortable dunce, neither respected nor 
 respectable; that he is full of pain and chagrin, and walks 
 the street with the air of a dyspeptic pirate, complaining 
 of “ the ingratitude of republics ” and talking of suicide ? 
 Would it be a good thing if God made money to drop 
 miraculously into his idle hands, crowned him with office, 
 and gave him the culture which earnest men elaborate so 
 slow by painful thought? Would it be kind in fact to 
 the grumbler himself ? A foolish mother would give him 
 all these things, unconditioned; the dear God says, “What 
 would you have ? Pay for it and take it.” No spoiled 
 children with the Infinite Mother ! If Themistocles feels 
 chagrin, and cannot sleep a-niglits for thinking of the 
 trophies of Miltiades, shall God come and rock the cradle 
 of this great Athenian baby; or let him lie awake till he 
 grows up a great Athenian man ! 
 
 Some men add to their family more than they can feed, 
 shall God turn stones to bread to stop their mouths ? It 
 rains pottage; Esau will not hold up his dish. Shall God 
 make rain come the other way, to please the lout ? What 
 
THE ECONOMY OE PAIN. 
 
 215 
 
 a world it would soon be, eacb hairy Esau turning out a 
 whining clown, not a valiant hunter, the world a foohs 
 paradise, where betwixt man and God it was always 
 “ Hail fellow ! well met.” 
 
 If a nation does not work, or works wrong,—brewing 
 its corn into beer, not baking it into bread, producing 
 rum and tobacco, not houses and cloth; if it applies to a 
 wrong purpose its sea-chariots, or land-chariots; will 
 build forts and not cities, breed soldiers and “nobles,” 
 not farmers and mechanics,—loaf-consumers, or destroyers 
 of loaves, not loaf-makers,—has the nation a right to com¬ 
 plain against God for its want of bread ? Or when com¬ 
 plaining with many prayers, shall God send a miracle to 
 feed the men, not leave them to hunger till their own 
 hands stop their mouth ? If half the people are left un¬ 
 cared for by the powerful class and turn out badly, steal, 
 rob, and murder, knowing no better, have the men who 
 have been careless a right to complain at the result ? Nay, 
 when all African Hayti arises “ in blackest insurrection,” 
 what right has the master to complain ? 
 
 Not long ago there was a famine in Ireland. It was 
 thought a most hideous famine even in that land where 
 hunger is the constant condition. England kept a day of 
 fasting and prayer, asking God to “ interpose, and with¬ 
 draw His hand ! ” Ah me ! The prayer was sadly unwise 
 and sounded irreverent. Had the Father meddled un¬ 
 wisely with His world ? The good God had done no 
 wrong; His hand is never out of place. The famine came 
 in mercy to man ; England had oppressed Ireland, pushed 
 the Irish to the brink of ruin, and did not seem to care 
 much how soon they went over. The Irish had not 
 planted corn, nothing but the potato. And that would 
 decay; not all at once, but little by little. Long years 
 ago the potato prophesied, rising early and warning men 
 whether they would hear or forbear: “ I am not fit to be 
 a nations bread. If you do not learn the lesson, why I 
 shall rot in the ground, and you will starve above it! ” 
 That was the word of the Lord by the mouth of His 
 servant Potato. No prophet ever spoke plainer, neither 
 Trojan Cassandra., nor Elias the Tishbite. He spoke to 
 deaf ears. The many were too ignorant, or feeble; the 
 few too idle, or selfish, to heed the word. So after the 
 
216 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 oracle came the history, and then the lamentation, the 
 fasting, and the prayer. In other lands, here in America, 
 the potato also failed, but men died not in consequence; 
 they had bread to eat and lived on. What did the famine 
 mean ? It spoke plainly as tongue could tell, “ Grow 
 more and better food ; eat and live, 0 ye Irishmen ! for 
 why will ye die ? ” 
 
 Not many centuries ago there was a famine every ten 
 or twenty years in the most refined nation of Europe,— 
 there were ten dreadful famines in France in a single 
 century. The priests prayed, and said, “ The world is 
 coming to an end. God is angry because you do not 
 come to mass, you unbelievers, you ! He will starve you 
 to death; and then torture you in hell.” But the prayer 
 brought no bread. Shall the prophet wait for the crow 
 to feed him ? The feeding will be of ravens, not prophets. 
 Whence came the famine ? Men had fought each other 
 instead of conquering the forces of Nature; had raised 
 soldiers, not farmers and clothiers. The famine warned 
 them of their error,—a painful warning, but the misery 
 not excessive. It sowed wheat. 
 
 A little while ago there came the cholera, scaring the 
 world. Men attributed it to the “ wrath of God ; ” beg¬ 
 ged that dear Father “to withdraw His hand,” thinking 
 Him meddlesome and ill-tempered! Men had been 
 ignorantly violating some of the natural conditions of 
 bodily well-being, nay, of bodily existence. If we went 
 on so we should all perish and the race die out. The 
 disease brought pain and death, plainly telling us of 
 our mistake and our consequent danger; bidding us 
 avoid the special cause of. that mischief. Would it have 
 been well for the Infinite Providence to alter for our 
 caprice the Constitution of the Universe and the pre- 
 established harmony between Nature and the frame of 
 man ? The public prayers changed not the purposes 
 of God, nor His motive, nor His means. But the board 
 of health swept the cholera out of many a town. 
 
 Man is sick, he prays for health. Shall God abolish 
 the pain, or leave man to find out and remove the causes 
 of his body^s grief and seek medicine to palliate the dis¬ 
 order—while 
 
THE ECONOMY OF PAIN. 
 
 217 
 
 u In every path 
 
 He treads down that which doth befriend him 
 When sickness makes him pale and wan ! ” 
 
 All these forms of pain and misery are clearly of a 
 remedial character, and come to warn ns of a mistake, to 
 drive us from error before we are ruined. Without the 
 pain, we should have been yet more pained. If our 
 request could be granted without the fulfilment of the 
 natural condition thereof, it would send leanness into our 
 souls. 
 
 “ To have my aim ; and yet, to he 
 Further from it, than when I bent my how— 
 
 To make my hopes, my torture ; and the fee 
 Of all my woes another woe— 
 
 Is in the midst of delicates to need, 
 
 And e’en in Paradise to he a weed.” 
 
 The pain we feel at the premature death of our asso¬ 
 ciates is of the same character. Old age, I take it, is 
 the only natural death for man. That we never mourn 
 at, nor regard as evil. My father, a hale man of three¬ 
 score, laid in the ground his own mother, fourscore and 
 twelve years old. She went thither gladly, with no an¬ 
 guish, no fear, with little pain; went as a tall pine tree 
 in the woods comes to the ground at the touch of a 
 winter wind, its branches heavy with snow, its trunk 
 feeble, its root sapless, worn-out, and old. He shed no 
 tears, he was not sorry that the shock of corn fully 
 ripened on earth was, in due time, gathered to Heaven. 
 He need not mourn; he should not mourn. It was the 
 course of Nature; and the child piously buried the ven¬ 
 erable, hoary head of his mother, long knocking at the 
 gate, and asking to be let through. But if he lost a 
 child it was a sad day, a dark year; for the child perished 
 immature. Sadly in June or July the gardener sees his 
 unripe apples scattered on the ground, disappointing his 
 hopes of harvest. But when 
 
 “ An apple, waxing over mellow, 
 
 Drops in some autumn night,” 
 
 he only rejoices that Nature’s ways come rounding to 
 their appropriate end. When the father buries the child, 
 the mourning Rachel, refusing to be comforted, shows 
 
218 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 there is a mistake somewhere ; the pain warns us thereof 
 before we all perish. 
 
 This seems to be the meaning and the merciful use of 
 the grief we feel at lying down our dear ones immature, 
 when these leaves of our tree are shattered “ before the 
 mellowing year.” At the present day such is the state of 
 medical science that the Doctors of Medicine know almost 
 as little of man's body as the Doctors of Divinity know 
 of his spirit. Between disease and the doctor there is a 
 wall, thick and high, with here and there a loophole 
 which some scientific man has made. Men look through 
 and see dimly in spots; and pass through some medicines 
 and advice, to palliate the mischief a little. The pain we 
 feel when our friends die an unnatural death; our own 
 reluctance to depart—life's duties not half done, nor half 
 its joys possessed;—the sympathy which all men feel 
 with those that suffer thus, making another's misery our 
 own,—these drive us to break down that wall, to cure the 
 disease, to learn the law of health, that all may ride in 
 sound bodies the stage of mortal life, check the steeds at 
 the proper bound, dismount from the flesh, and continue 
 our journey in such other chariot as God provides for the 
 ascension. 
 
 A child plays on the edge of a rock; the mother creeps 
 up stealthily, and suddenly plucks away the romantic boy 
 loving to look down into the deep darkness. Pain comes 
 on the same motherly errand. Shall God let us fall in, 
 not warned of the pit ? 
 
 The terrible diseases which sweep off half the human 
 race before they count three summers and those which 
 decimate the ranks of adult men, are a warning to man¬ 
 kind showing that we live unwisely yet. The result of 
 the pain we suffer is a continual effort to live wiser, 
 better, longer, and so the term of human life continually 
 grows more and more. 
 
 All the pain and misery of the character thus far spoken 
 of, are plainly medical and benevolent. If it did not hurt 
 the hands to burn, or freeze them, who of us would grow 
 up with a finger ? If feet did not smart with abuse, they 
 would be treated as shoes, worn out in childhood, and no 
 hardy boy would have a foot left. If broken teeth did 
 not ache, so long as walnuts have a shell, no child would 
 
THE ECONOMY OF PAIN. 
 
 219 
 
 be safe; tlie world would be full of toothless striplings* 
 The pain of poverty and want, of ignorance, of disappointed 
 ambition, of affections bereaved or disappointed in a 
 sadder sort; of the accidents to individuals by flood and 
 field, to nations by war; of the diseases which prey upon 
 mankind—the rats and mice of the worlds housekeeping, 
 —it all has this meaning and this use. See with what 
 scorpion whips Poverty drives the Irishmen out of Ire¬ 
 land ; and pursues them in America, forcing them to work 
 and think. The American beggar hears the lash which 
 once he felt, and avoids the blow. In half a century we 
 shall see the result—the Irishmen will be also industrious, 
 thoughtful, well-fed, well-clad. Men run trains of rail¬ 
 road cars together, or attempt to pass a river when the 
 drawbridge is up ; and there is the wreck of matter and 
 the crush of men. The remedy for the pain is at hand. 
 The great annual destruction of human life in America, 
 by the carelessness of men who control the land and water 
 carriages wherein the public ride, is a warning against 
 our folly; the evil perfectly within our own control. All 
 these things must needs have been foreseen. The attend¬ 
 ant pain is the perpetual check on human caprice, the 
 constant of Nature which controls our variable whim. 
 
 See how pain occasioned by loss of friends, with the 
 wide sympathy it calls out, forces us to study the laws of 
 health, to cure the sick, to keep men sound. Famine 
 makes men creative to produce, and prudent to spare. 
 The cholera teaches temperance and cleanliness, which 
 once the plague bid mankind learn. Every case of ty¬ 
 phoid warns us of broken law; a shipwreck rings the 
 bell to notify us to have stouter vessels, or have them 
 better sailed, with fitter apparatus on board, and better 
 beacons on the coast. If men are too indolent, and will 
 not rule themselves, the tyrant binds on his burdens, 
 which grow more and more difficult to be borne. The 
 suffering from bad political institutions in Naples, Spain, 
 Hungary, and all the world, is not more than sufficient 
 to warn mankind, to make them seek out and avoid the 
 cause of smart. A nation, like a man, shivers long at 
 night, before it gets courage to rise, to hew wood, to 
 build a fire and so be warm again. Is the pain of 
 Europe at this day too great for this end ? The frost 
 
220 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 does not yet bite sharp enough to wake mankind from sa¬ 
 vage sleep. Before us Pain, a flitting messenger, hurries 
 to warn us; behind stands Misery to drive. But the one 
 warms us from our bale; the other drives us to our bliss. 
 
 If we pursue the inductive course as far as we can see, 
 and then follow the way of deduction from the Idea of the 
 Infinite God, to this conclusion must we come at last— 
 that the present physical pain and misery in the world of 
 animals and men is not an Absolute Evil; quite far from 
 it, it is a partial Good; that it is disciplinary, preparing 
 us for the Ultimate and Absolute Good. 
 
 But after all this is clearly made out, it must still be 
 confessed that there are millions of men who from no con- 
 * scious evil of their own suffer a great deal of misery, and 
 pass out of life apparently unrecompensed;—the men who 
 are cut off in early life, tortured by disease, stung by 
 poverty, sacrificed to the purposes of the race, and leave 
 their lesson to others; men disappointed in their ten- 
 derest affections; those whose hearts are so sadly bereaved 
 that they go mourning all their days. For the negative, 
 or positive, fevil they suffer here, the only adequate com¬ 
 pensation must come in another state of being, beyond the 
 grave. I know not the means, no man knows; perhaps 
 no man can ever know in this life. But as God is Infi¬ 
 nite, and creates all from a perfect motive, of perfect 
 material, for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect means 
 thereto, it is absolutely certain that the ultimate welfare 
 of each animal or human creature must at last be made 
 sure. This does not follow from any of the finite concep¬ 
 tions of Deity—from Jupiter or Zeus, from the Jehovah 
 of the Old Testament, or the God of the popular theology ; 
 but it follows unavoidably from the idea of the Infinite 
 God. As a fluent point generates a line, so the Infinite 
 God generates blessedness, and ever blessedness, and 
 only blessedness. So all the pain and misery God^s crea¬ 
 tures suffer, must one day be abundantly repaid. It was 
 all foreseen and provided for by Him 
 
 “ Who is of all Creator and Defence,” 
 
 as a part of His scheme, here a resultant of necessitated 
 force, there the contingent of individual freedom acting 
 in contact with other forces. But in both cases must it 
 
THE ECONOMY OF PAIN. 
 
 221 
 
 be perfectly provided for. This is as certain as that one 
 and one make two. For as the last conclusion of a geo¬ 
 metric demonstration follows unavoidably from the axioms 
 of mathematic science and the data of the problem, so 
 ultimate, complete, and perfect Welfare follows from the 
 Infinite Perfection of God. He has made pain and misery 
 part of the discipline of this life; it must have been in 
 infinite benevolence that He did so. Mankind is doubt¬ 
 less saved by present suffering from suffering worse. 
 Not by the pains of Jesus, but its own, is mankind saved. 
 Our own pain and misery are educational discipline; if 
 the roots of culture be bitter, doubtless the blossom will 
 be fair and fragrant, and the final fruit sweet to our soul. 
 The pain and misery which others suffer from ignorance, 
 and causes beyond their own control, help teach us cha¬ 
 rity ; the time, the means, the effort we expend in their 
 behalf is often so much devoted to our highest culture,—* 
 the education of Conscience, of the Affections, yea, of 
 the Soul which by nature turns to God. 
 
 Now then where is the Absolute Evil of Pain and 
 Misery of this character ? There is none such ! Two 
 angels, archangels if men will name them such—Gabriel 
 and Michael,—come to warn us; not exceptions to God ; s 
 Providence, ministers thereof, they come to man and bird 
 and beast, on the same errand of benevolence—to warn 
 us of a mistake; not angels with a flaming sword turning 
 every way to keep us from the Tree of Life ; angels they 
 are who walk between us and the Tree of Death to keep 
 man from the Upas of ruin. 
 
 If the universe were to end to-day, it would seem a 
 failure, for now only the spring-time of the worlds long 
 year is present, and man goes forth, ignorant and weep¬ 
 ing, and with pain scatters seed which one day, all and 
 each, are to bear manifold the bounteous harvest of im¬ 
 mortal joy. But all around us seems made for stable 
 duration, and is auspicious of a glorious future for man¬ 
 kind on earth. The coldest of men feel deeply and by 
 instinctive nature, that the misery of the world is only a 
 pain of growth, not of decay. 
 
 “ Slight symptoms these ; but shepherds know 
 How hot the mid-day sun shall glow 
 From the mists of morning sky.’* 
 
222 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 I have often asked you to notice how the material 
 forces of Nature work together, how wisely they are dis¬ 
 tributed ; how beautiful are its statical and dynamical 
 laws; how wonderfully Centripetal and Centrifugal, those 
 two strong horses of the Almighty, sweep this earthly 
 chariot through the sky; how chemical and vital forces 
 serve the economy of the Universe, and how the mini¬ 
 mum of means produces the maximum of end therein. 
 Yet even there, in Nature, we see but little of the whole, 
 and know but little of what we see. Things yet uncom¬ 
 prehended continually appear. It is but a single page in 
 Nature^s book we have learned to read. 
 
 So far as human science reaches it is plain that the 
 sensibility to suffering is distributed with the same wis¬ 
 dom as the organic forces of the world; that Pain and 
 Pleasure have each their calculated work to do, both fore¬ 
 known at creation, and eternally provided for. In this 
 vast and much-entangled labyrinth of living things it is 
 more difficult to see our way than among the material 
 elements, 
 
 “ —the eldest birth 
 
 Of Nature’s womb, that in quaternion run 
 
 Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix 
 
 And nourish all things.” 
 
 But when we see the whole we recognize the bountiful 
 benevolence of God. Bacon devised his New Instrument 
 for human thought, the Novum Organum of physical sci¬ 
 ence ; Newton wrote out in mathematic poetry the Prin- 
 cipia of the Universe, the laws that govern quantity in 
 space; La Place yet more magnificently set forth the fair 
 Mechanics of the Sky, the mathematic laws of the hea¬ 
 venly machine, of whose composite forces Beauty and 
 Harmony are the perpetual result; Yon Humboldt— 
 laborious still, grown old in being taught and teaching, 
 his mind youthful with all the scientific riches of the 
 ■world swept into the German Ocean of his long living 
 consciousness,—groups into a harmonious whole this 
 Kosmos of material force, painting in words the L T ni- 
 verse, this majestic, Amazonian Flower of God floating 
 upon the sea of space. And what a world of harmonious 
 beauty it is, as seen by the material eye and then re¬ 
 flected in the educated mind of these philosophers ! 
 
THE ECONOMY OP PAIN. 
 
 223 
 
 But when some man, with mind greater than the 
 greatest of these, shall gather into his more affluent con¬ 
 sciousness a corresponding knowledge of the world of 
 animals and men; shall devise the New Instrument of a 
 higher science; write in more than mathematic poetry 
 the Principia of this sensitive universe, the Laws that 
 govern Life in time and space, magnificently setting forth 
 the fair Mechanics of the Vital World, its Metaphysic 
 Laws, whose ultimate resultant is lovelier Beauty and 
 Harmony of a yet more sweet accord ; and grouping to a 
 harmonious whole this other Kosmos of vital and personal 
 forces, painting in words this white, Amazonian Lily of 
 Human Life floating on the river of God—why, what a 
 wealth of wisdom, of justice, of love, and holiness will it 
 not reveal in the Infinite Father and Mother of all that 
 are ! Then by the inductive mode alone, without deduc¬ 
 tion from the idea of God, but only by the study of facts 
 and history, shall men prove, what I can only postulate, 
 the perfect workmanship of God. 
 
 In the pain and suffering of mankind, and of our 
 feebler attendants, I see the promise of a glorious future 
 for mankind. I know there is a recompense for every 
 sparrow robbed of her young, or prematurely falling to 
 the ground; that the infinite Herdsman of the universe 
 takes thought for oxen, and is a perfect Providence for 
 the individual and for all mankind. The history of the 
 world is indeed the judgment thereof, but not the final; 
 and what it bears off unrewarded it carries to the great 
 ocean of Eternity, where exact justice shall be done in 
 love to every creature of the dear, eternal God. 
 
 X. 
 
 THE ECONOMY OF MOEAL ERROR UNDER THE 
 UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 
 
 HE HATH MADE NOTHING IMPERFECT.-ECCLESIASTICUS XLII. 24 . 
 
 Last Sunday I spoke of one form of Evil, of the 
 physical Pain and Misery in the World of Animals and 
 
224 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 Men, which, come from violating the physical conditions 
 of welfare ; designing to show the Function and Economy 
 thereof in the Providence of God. To-day I wish to 
 speak of the other form of Evil, of the Pain and Misery 
 which comes from, violating other conditions of welfare; 
 of Moral Error and Sin, with their consequences; design¬ 
 ing to show the Function and Economy thereof in the 
 Providence of God. The two departments of inquiry are 
 lands, lying side by side, indistinctly separated, locking 
 into each other by many plies and folds, so that the 
 stream which rises in one runs into the other, and it is 
 difficult, perhaps impossible, in all cases to say where one 
 begins and the other ends, so indistinct are the boundaries. 
 In both these sermons I often cross the lines. 
 
 In Theological Ethics there are some broad distinc¬ 
 tions of things, marked by corresponding distinctions of 
 language, which ought to be borne in mind. Here are 
 some of the terms I shall use in a technical sense in this 
 sermon. 
 
 A mistake is the violation of some Rule of Correctness, 
 or of Expediency. To do inexpediently is a mistake. It 
 produces an experiment which fails, because the calcula¬ 
 tion on which it is founded is incorrect. Jehu would go 
 from Bethany to Jerusalem; he misconceives the way, 
 takes the wrong road, comes out at Bethlehem instead, 
 and loses his journey. 
 
 A mistake has its origin in an intellectual deficiency, a 
 lack of knowledge. It may be a lack of knowledge in 
 general—Jehu never knew the way from Bethany to 
 Jerusalem fora lack of knowledge at that special time— 
 he had forgotten, he had not his wits about him, he did 
 not take heed to his ways, and so he lost his journey. It 
 may come from a lack of general intellectual power. 
 Thus a fool mistakes stones for bread. There are men of 
 weak minds, who do not discern clearly by their intellect; 
 or whose intellectual perceptions do not much influence 
 their will and their conduct,—simpletons, idiots, fools, in 
 respect to power of mind, they often make mistakes 
 through lack of wit. 
 
 Mistakes of this sort are often called Errors; and so 
 men speak of “ errors of the press,” “ errors of longitude,” 
 “ errors of calculation,” and the like. In such cases in 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR. 
 
 225 
 
 tliis sermon,/I will use the word Mistake, to reserve the 
 term “Error” for another and strictly technical use. 
 
 An Error is the unconscious and involuntary violation 
 of some Rule of Right, of the Moral Law of God, It is 
 to the Conscience what a mistake is to the intellect—it is 
 a moral mistake, as a mistake is an intellectual error. To 
 do unjustly is an Error, as to do inexpediently is a Mis¬ 
 take. One violates the Rule of Right, the other the Rule 
 of Expediency. Every Error is also a mistake, for what 
 is really wrong is always partially and ultimately inex¬ 
 pedient ; but every Mistake is not also an Error. Jehu 
 did no moral wrong by mistaking the high road to Beth¬ 
 lehem for that to Jerusalem. 
 
 Here is an example of Error: the ill-bred boys steal 
 apples from Ahab’s garden; to correct them he shuts the 
 offenders up in jail with old and accomplished rogues, 
 where they grow worse by their confinement; the well- 
 meant correction wrongs and worsens the boys. He has 
 violated a moral law of God, the natural rule of right, 
 seeking to overcome the evil in them by another evil out 
 of them, setting his vengeance against their trespass. 
 But he did this unconsciously and involuntarily : he did 
 not know there was such a natural law; he had no inten¬ 
 tion of doing wrong; he knew no better way to guard his 
 orchard and correct the young marauders. 
 
 Error comes from deficiency of moral power—general, 
 or special, from a lack of moral knowledge : Ahab never 
 knew the Rule of Right which applies to such cases, that 
 justice is the medicine for injustice, love for hate, and 
 good for evil; or he had forgotten, and did not recollect 
 it at the time; or, if he did, his general human conscience 
 was borne down by his special and particular sense of the 
 loss; and for a time it seemed as if he had never known 
 any better. There are men of weak conscience—such as 
 do not discern morally, or whose moral perceptions do 
 not much influence their will,—moral simpletons, moral 
 idiots, moral fools. They often commit Errors, as feeble 
 children stumble, and mouths ill-formed stammer and 
 cannot talk. 
 
 A Crime is a Violation of some Human Statute—some 
 positive rule of conduct laid down by the government. 
 To do illegally is a crime.* Thus it is a crime in Boston 
 
 vol. xi. — Theism , §c. 15 
 
226 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 to drive a waggon on the left-hand side of the street, in 
 Berlin on the right-hand side. In the District of Co¬ 
 lumbia it is a crime to harbour or conceal a slave who has 
 run away from one of the Barbary States of America; in 
 the District of Tunis it is a crime not to harbour and 
 conceal a slave who has run away from one of the Barbary 
 States of Africa. In Boston it is a crime to take a white 
 dollar which is not yours and appropriate it to your use, 
 and the man who does this is put in jail; while it is no 
 crime, but a legal service, to take this black man, who 
 belongs not to you, but to himself, and appropriate him to 
 your use. The man who does such deeds is held in social 
 and ecclesiastical honour. Christianity is a crime at 
 Constantinople, Mohammedanism at Rome, and effective 
 humanity shown to a black woman escaping from her 
 “ owner ” in Carolina, is a crime in Boston. To help 
 Shadrach out of the hands of the man-stealers of Boston 
 was the highest crime known to American law; it was 
 “ levying war,” treason, liable to be punished with death; 
 in Halifax it would be the fulfilment of the golden rule, 
 and rendering a service unto Jesus Christ. To protect 
 Ellen Craft while kidnappers were clutching at her life, 
 was a crime in New England; in old England it is an 
 honour. If a man in this city should seize and force into 
 . bondage Cuban negroes escaping hither from a monarchic 
 fetter, he would commit a crime : but there are persons 
 here whose official and legal function it is to seize and 
 force into bondage American negroes, escaping hither 
 from a democratic fetter; commissioned for that very 
 purpose. To kill an unoffending man for your own 
 personal pleasure or profit in Massachusetts, is a crime ; 
 in New Zealand it is a matter of common practice. The 
 professional man-butcher has a legal existence in New 
 Zealand, I am told, as much as the professional manstealer 
 in Boston. It is a crime to resist eitlie'r in his local 
 function. 
 
 A Crime may be a mistake, or it may be an error; for 
 the human statute violated may represent the natural rule 
 of expediency, or of right: or it may be neither an error, 
 nor a mistake; for the human statute violated may itself 
 be both inexpedient and unjust, as in the acts establishing 
 the man-butcher at New Zealand and the man-stealer at 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR. 
 
 227 
 
 Boston. It is no function of the official executors of the 
 statute to inquire whether it corresponds to the Rule of 
 Right. The judge and the hangman are to be just as 
 active in punishing a man for rescuing Shadrach from the 
 kidnappers, as in punishing the worst of pirates, red all 
 over with human blood; for such officers are of law, not 
 Justice, and a crime is an Offence against Law whether 
 just or unjust. 
 
 A Sin is a conscious and voluntary or wilful violation 
 of a known law of God. To do wickedly is a Sin. This 
 does not come from lack of intellectual perception, nor 
 from lack of moral perception; but from an unwillingness 
 to do the known Right, and a willingness to do the known 
 Wrong. It comes from some other deficiency, a com¬ 
 pound deficiency—from lack of affectional power, or of 
 religious power, or from a perverse will. 
 
 Here is an example: Henry honestly owes John a 
 talent of gold, and can pay him, but will not, though John 
 needs the money. The Non-payment is a negative Sin. 
 William knows it is naturally wrong to steal, he is rich 
 and has no material occasion to make stealing excusable, 
 but he robs Dorcas, a poor unprotected seamstress. The 
 Theft is a positive Sin. 
 
 Sin is a violation of the Rule of Right; and so is dis¬ 
 tinguished from a Mistake. It is conscious and voluntary; 
 and so is distinguished from an Error. It is a violation 
 of*a Natural Law of God; and is thus distinguished from 
 a Crime. 
 
 I might discriminate a little more nicely and make a 
 distinction between a Subjective Sin—which is a con¬ 
 scious violation of what is thought to be a natural law, 
 but is not; and an Objective Sin, a conscious violation of 
 what is a natural law. In each case the integrity of con¬ 
 sciousness is disturbed. 
 
 So much for the definition of terms. 
 
 There may be various degrees of Error and of Sin. It 
 is not easy to say where one begins and the other ends; 
 for in ethics, as in all science, it is not easy to distin¬ 
 guish things by their circumferences, where they blend, 
 but only by their centres, where the difference is most 
 clearly marked. 
 
 It is sometimes said there can be no such Error, or Sin, 
 
 15 * 
 
228 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 
 as I speak of. This is one doctrine of that pantheistic 
 scheme, before mentioned, which appears in so many 
 forms and under such antagonistic names. A natural law 
 of God, it is asserted, can no more be violated, con¬ 
 sciously or unconsciously, by man than by matter. A 
 Sin, therefore—in the meaning just affixed to that word 
 —is as impossible as a solar eclipse at the time of full 
 moon; or as a straight line which is not the shortest 
 distance between two points; it is the law of God, and so 
 the will of God, that William should rob the seamstress, 
 Henry neglect to pay John, and Ahab clap the boys into 
 jail for pilfering his apples. 
 
 The distinction between the normality of matter and 
 the normality of man, if not obvious, is yet clear enough. 
 In physical science we learn the law of matter by seeing 
 what is done; it is derived from facts of observation; by 
 a natural intellectual process, from all the facts we know 
 we gather the Law of the Facts, that is, the Natural Mode 
 of Operation of the material forces we study. Thus we 
 know the law by seeing its observance; know it to be 
 binding by seeing things bound by it, as far as we see at 
 all. It is found solely by the inductive process, by ob¬ 
 servation and demonstration. It is an Idea which, so to 
 say, rests always on two pillars of fact,—Facts of Ob¬ 
 servation, Facts of Demonstration. There is no actual 
 exception to the general law ; a single contrary fact would 
 show us there was no such law as we supposed. In 
 Nature the ideal and the actual are the same,—the ideal 
 law and the actual fact. This is true in mathematics, 
 true also in physics. Theory and practice are identical. 
 
 In ethical science, we learn the law of human nature— 
 that is, the Natural Mode of Operation of the human forces 
 in Thomas, or in mankind—not by observation and de¬ 
 monstration, but by an intuition of consciousness. The 
 law is not a fact of observation or demonstration, but of 
 consciousness. It is just as much a law of human nature 
 if Ahab, Henry, and T\ illiam have violated it all their 
 lives, as if they had consciously complied therewith. If 
 we merely take all the facts of observation made upon 
 man and thence induce a law, we can only see what has 
 worked well hitherto, and get an empirical knowledge of 
 the expedient in time past; the conclusion represents the 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR. 
 
 229 
 
 facts of human history, not the facts of human nature ; it 
 applies, at best, only to those faculties already developed 
 and enjoyed, not to those others yet undeveloped. And 
 of course our scheme of ethics will have the imperfections 
 which belong to the persons or actions, who furnish us 
 the facts. The Ideal will not transcend the Actual, but 
 be identical with it. Man has uniformly exploitered 
 woman; the government, the people; the strong, the 
 weak; cc it is the natural ethical law of human nature that 
 this should be so.” That would be a fair conclusion from 
 this mode of procedure. Indeed the atheist—who studies 
 man in this way—tells us it is so; the consistent popular 
 theologian, who follows the same course, assures us that 
 we can get nothing better from “ the light of Nature; ” 
 that all higher ethics come only of “miraculous revela¬ 
 tion.” 
 
 But by attending to the facts of consciousness, to the 
 moral instincts; and by the direct action of the moral 
 faculties which do not follow, but anticipate, experience, 
 we learn from human nature, not merely from human 
 history. Thus we get knowledge of a law of human 
 nature which is an Ideal of Consciousness, though not yet 
 the actual of experience. It is in a great measure a 
 matter of will whether we follow this law and realize this 
 ideal or not. It is our duty to obey this ideal law when 
 we know it; consciously and wilfully to violate it is Sin. 
 
 Philosophically to deny the possibility of this kind of 
 Error and of Sin, you must deny either that there is any 
 difference between Right and Wrong; or else that man 
 has any Freedom to choose between them. Some men 
 have denied each; but it appears to me that both are 
 facts of consciousness. I feel conscious of a difference 
 and antagonism between Right and Wrong ; that is an ul¬ 
 timate fact of consciousness. The greater part of mankind 
 feel the same thing, and have words to express that fact. 
 I feel conscious of freedom, to a certain extent; that also 
 is an ultimate fact of consciousness. The greater part of 
 mankind feel the same thing. In a matter of this sort 
 my own consciousness is of the utmost value to me; the 
 opinion of the human race has much weight, for this is 
 one of the cases in which mankind is a good judge. 
 
 Now, much of the Pain and Misery in the world of man 
 
230 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 comes from a violation of the moral laws of Nature, from 
 Error and Sin. Can this evil be reconciled with the Pro¬ 
 vidence of the Infinite God; or is it an Absolute Evil ? 
 Let us first look at Error, then at Sin, at each with its 
 consequences. 
 
 In treating of the misery which comes therefrom, I will 
 speak of it, first, on a large scale—in its Political Form, 
 of the Errors men make in their Civil Government. 
 
 The natural moral law, in its political operation, re¬ 
 quires that in the State there shall be complete and per¬ 
 fect National Unity of Action,—the nation being as com¬ 
 plete a whole as a man’s body,—that is necessary for all, 
 that there may be a complete Whole; and a complete 
 and perfect Individual Variety of Action—each man doing 
 just what he is fittest to do and can do best,—that is’ 
 necessary for each man, that he may be a complete per¬ 
 son, with free spiritual individuality, as free and inde¬ 
 pendent in the State, as my hand and feet are in the 
 body, and as much in his proper place and about his 
 proper function. By this means there will be a combina¬ 
 tion of efforts, but a distribution of functions; national 
 unity of end and design with personal diversity of means 
 thereto. The centripetal power, the Government, and 
 the centrifugal power, the Individual, will be combined 
 into a cosmic harmony like that “ which doth preserve 
 the stars from wrong.” 
 
 This is the ethic ideal of a State, the political tool ne¬ 
 cessary to the welfare of mankind. Nothing short of . 
 that with its industrial and economical contrivances, will 
 allow the individual all his natural and unalienable rights, 
 and enable him to have the normal use, development, and 
 enjoyment of every limb of his body and every faculty of 
 his spirit. It is the political condition to complete 
 human welfare. But there is not a nation in the world 
 which has attained it yet. It is the ethic ideal of a State 
 which the foremost men of the world are striving to set 
 up. It can only be reached by the gradual development 
 of human nature, which can take place only through pro¬ 
 gression by experiment. Some of the experiments will 
 fail, through Mistakes—a violation of the rule of expedi¬ 
 ency; through Errors—a violation of the rule of right, 
 will fail in consequence of man’s intellectual or moral 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MOEAL EEEOE. 
 
 231 
 
 weakness. If the failure is persisted in misery follows 
 and at length, destruction; the pain warns us of the 
 ' blunder. 
 
 Now I have not heard enough to show in all cases how 
 this suffering proves remedial, and to demonstrate the 
 perfect Providence of God in the history of man. For, 
 to do that it would be necessary to have an amount of 
 knowledge, both of human nature and of human history, 
 which no man possesses as yet; which perhaps *it is not 
 possible for mortal man ever to possess. But I can see 
 the beneficent effect and tendency of this in so many 
 cases, that the general analogy is clearly made out, even 
 without recurring to the Idea of God as Infinite to “vin¬ 
 dicate the ways of God to man.” Yet without that Idea 
 I confess I should feel little general confidence in such a 
 vindication. 
 
 Look at some of the examples of this kind of suffering. 
 Here are nations which eminently lack National Unity of 
 Action. That is the case with all the governments in 
 Spanish America. The Hispano-Americans have not yet 
 made a national harness which will hold all the people. 
 Their political experiments have not succeeded very well. 
 Their civil instrument is a poor tool, which works rather 
 badly and hurts the nations hand. As a consequence 
 there follows a great deal of suffering; the nations, each 
 taken as a whole, are poor and weak ; the individuals, 
 taken separately, are also poor, ill-educated, oppressed, 
 or oppressing, and not enjoying high modes of happiness. 
 Their suffering is the consequence of their economical 
 Mistakes and moral Errors. 
 
 But how shall they ever get a better form of govern¬ 
 ment ? Only by making the trial. And if they suffered 
 no pain from the present failure they would make no 
 effort for future success. The pain urges them continually 
 to alter and mend. They cannot be rich, happy, well 
 educated, nor even tranquil, until they have this national 
 Unity of Action. Hence they are in a state of continual 
 disturbance and fermentation. Mexico alone has had 
 twenty-seven revolutions in less than thirty years. Would 
 it be a good thing if God were by miracle to remove this 
 power to suffer on account of these causes ? Shall He 
 miraculously give them a constitution and frame of go- 
 
232 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 vernment; and miraculously dispose all men to accept 
 it ? That would be to treat those creoles like mules and 
 oxen, not like men. A woman wishes to walk cool in 
 the summer’s heat; shall God miraculously give her the 
 great shadow of a peculiar cloud, or leave her to make 
 her own umbrella, and walk rejoicing in its shade ? 
 
 Here are other nations which as eminently lack Indi¬ 
 vidual Variety of Action—Spain, Italy, Austria, Turkey, 
 Russia, not to mention others. A great amount of force 
 must be misdirected by the nation, as a whole, to keep 
 the individuals in their unnatural condition : as a conse¬ 
 quence there is a diminution of the productive power of 
 the people as a whole—soldiers and policemen so nu¬ 
 merous, mechanics, merchants, farmers, so rare,—and 
 accordingly the nations are poor, and the government 
 unstable and corrupt. Individual men suffer from the 
 unnatural restriction. This twofold misery is the un¬ 
 avoidable consequence of their political Error, it notifies 
 men of the failure of their experiment. But the mischief 
 can only be got rid of by making new political experi¬ 
 ments. The national tool works badly, it hurts the hands 
 of the People; they must take it again to the forge, heat 
 and warm it over anew in some other revolution, and 
 make a political instrument better suited to the work 
 they wish to accomplish. Shall God alter the nature of 
 man to accommodate the Spaniard, the Neapolitan, and 
 the Turk, making human welfare to come from tyranny 
 and ignorant exploitation of the People as well as from a 
 wise and just frame of government ? Shall He miracu¬ 
 lously prevent the anxiety of a tyrant, or the misery of His 
 victim ? A woodman* s axe is dull; shall God alter the 
 constitution of the trees, and increase the toughness of 
 the woodman* s arms : or leave him to sharpen his axe, 
 and then hew down the trees with more comfort ? 
 
 Look at the human race as one person : from the be¬ 
 ginning till now man has been devising an instrument to 
 produce welfare. Every experiment has been a partial 
 success, each also a partial failure. So far as the attempt 
 succeeded the result has been delightful; so far as it 
 failed, painful. Suffering follows Error; man abandons 
 the Error, abolishes the mischief, tries again, making out 
 bettor next time. The pain has only been adequate to 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR. 
 
 233 
 
 sharpen his wits, like hunger and thirst to make him 
 work in other forms. Thus man gets his political educa¬ 
 tion and political enjoyment. He tries despotism—that 
 tool does not please him; then a monarchy, then an aris¬ 
 tocracy, then a republic, and improves continually in his 
 constitutions as in his agricultural and military tools. 
 Man in his political development hitherto has not suffered 
 proportionately more than a little girl, under ordinary 
 circumstances, in growing up to womanhood. But no 
 one complains and thinks it an Absolute Evil that the 
 wind sometimes blows off the hat of the little maiden; 
 that she now and then falls down and soils her frock ; 
 that her hoop runs off the side-walk; or that she fails to 
 get the right conjunction in her French exercise and 
 cries with chagrin at the recitations. Mankind, like little 
 Miss, suffers from corresponding evils, has the diseases 
 of childhood, in a political form. Anarchy, despotism, 
 revolutions,—these are the measles and whooping-cough 
 of the human race, one day to be outgrown. The present 
 political condition of mankind as much belongs to the pre¬ 
 sent age of mankind, and comes as naturally in the process 
 of human development, I take it, as the greenness of apples 
 belongs to the month of June, and the immaturity of 
 boyhood to early years. Shall we complain that the boy 
 is not born a man grown ; that the apple is not mature 
 in June instead of October ? 
 
 Political Oppression in its many forms is one of the 
 worst evils which now afflict the enlightened nations. 
 But it comes unavoidably from the nature of man—finite 
 and progressive in his social as well as his individual con¬ 
 dition. For human development it is necessary that men 
 should gather in large masses, in nations; to accomplish 
 that political experiments are necessary; the first at¬ 
 tempt of a finite and free creature is not likely to succeed 
 and produce the effect which is ultimately desirable; the 
 experiment may fail, and its failure must bring pain. 
 Besides, man is politically progressive, and outgrows his 
 institutions as the individual his baby-clothes. Those 
 which pleased him once become a source of pain, no 
 longer suiting the altered condition of the race. Here, 
 as elsewhere, the pain is a warning. 
 
 Sometimes we can see the particular good results 
 
234 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 brought about by some special evil. The Boston Port- 
 Bill, the Stamp Act, with the other oppressive legisla¬ 
 tions of England, hastened the separation of the Ameri¬ 
 can child from her mother—to the lasting gain of both 
 and also of the human race. A thinking man sees 
 manifold examples of this sort in all theJaistory of man¬ 
 kind, God 
 
 “ From seeming evil still educing good, 
 
 And better thence again, and better still 
 In infinite Progression.” 
 
 Suppose man had been made incapable of suffering 
 from political Errors, when they came in the experiments 
 of the race. The Hebrews would have been content 
 ■under the taskmasters of Egypt, and so have continued 
 slaves until they were degraded beyond possibility of ele¬ 
 vation on earth: till they perished outright. If the 
 Puritan had not smarted from the oppression he suffered, 
 he would have borne it patiently till now; and have 
 become what despots love—a passive tool of tyranny; 
 the world would have lost the brave development of man¬ 
 hood which has come from that hardy stock. The horse 
 and the ass are the servants of man; they do not suffer 
 from that state of subordination; they take it 
 
 “ With a patient shrug,— 
 
 For sufferance is the badge of all the tribe,”— 
 
 and are content. Treat them kindly, give them enough 
 to eat, do not overwork them, and you have done the 
 beast no wrong. The dog is the only animal, perhaps, 
 who voluntarily puts himself under the protection of 
 man. He does not suffer by human subordination ; it 
 does not necessarily debase him, or prevent his develop¬ 
 ment and his canine welfare. If his pliant nature yields 
 to man's plastic hand, and takes new forms, his happi¬ 
 ness has also new forms. cc What a generosity and 
 courage he will put on when he finds himself maintained 
 by a man, who is to him instead of a God, or Melior 
 Natura ! " But man is debased by such subordination ; 
 and if he did not suffer and smart when another's will 
 was imposed on him, the degradation would be ruin 
 before he was aware of the peril. If he did not smart 
 
THE ECONOMY OE MORAL ERROR. 
 
 235 
 
 with pain under analogous thraldom, when treated well, 
 well fed, well clad, and not over-worked, the nations 
 had been slaves this day to a few men with minds full of 
 mastery. 
 
 The ruder a nation is, the less developed in the higher 
 faculties, the more external force is necessary to keep 
 individuals together and in order. But the less is such 
 force debasing or painful to the sufferer. It requires 
 more external force to establish national Unity of Action 
 in Russia than in America; the constraint which a Rus¬ 
 sian needs and bears without pain, would be intolerable 
 to a New-Englander, or a Briton. 
 
 Much misery appears in a Social Form, the conse¬ 
 quence of Errors made in organizing men into commu¬ 
 nities. The ethic ideal of society is an organization of 
 men and women so skilfully constructed that each man 
 shall do the normal work which he can do best, with 
 the most advantage to himself and to all his fellows; 
 that he shall develope harmoniously all his faculties with 
 entire natural freedom, and at the same time have the 
 advantage of the aid and companionship of other men, all 
 likewise doing their best thing. Here there will be a 
 perfect Social Unity of Action and at the same time 
 perfect Individual Variety of Action—normal personal 
 freedom. On the one hand, there will appear the Soli¬ 
 darity of Mankind, at least of the special community; on 
 the other the Sacredness of the Individual. Each man 
 will be deemed a Fraction of societv, and so a factor in 
 its product, but also an Integer ; and both the functions, 
 that of the fraction and the integer, will be sacredly re¬ 
 spected. In this case the social usages, and the public 
 opinion they rest on, will correspond exactly with the 
 faculties of man in their actual state of development; 
 and with the natural moral laws of God. There will be 
 the same blending of the centripetal power of the whole 
 and the centrifugal power of the individual into that 
 cosmic harmony which I spoke of before, whereby “ the 
 most ancient Heavens are fresh and strong.-” Then the 
 various persons of the community will work together 
 with as little friction as the Planets in their course; with 
 as little waste as the forces which form a rose or a lily. 
 The laws, customs, and habits of society will be just and 
 
236 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 natural. There will be no crime,—no man sacrificed to 
 another man, or to the mass of men. There will'be no 
 pauperism because no laziness, no waste, and no ra¬ 
 pacity : a diversity of functions, but concentric unity 
 of purpose and a combination of efforts to achieve it. 
 Every man will be in perfect harmony with himself, with 
 his fellow-men, and with Nature,—in perfect circum¬ 
 stances. So he will be in perfect health both of body 
 and spirit. Labour will be as delightful to men as to 
 emmets, beavers, and robins building their nests : birth, 
 life, death, all will be natural, all beautiful. Such is the 
 ethic ideal of a community. Nothing less will corre¬ 
 spond to the nature of man and the normal mode of action 
 of the human powers; nothing less to the social moral 
 law of God. 
 
 But there is no such community in the world; there 
 never has been. Behold what pain and misery come of 
 our attempts to organize men! A community is at 
 present a jumble of human forces; not a concord, but a 
 discord. How many men are out of their natural sphere ! 
 This man was born a hunter, but he sits uneasily on a 
 shoemaker’s bench all his life, dyspeptic and ill-tempered. 
 How many an idle profligate is cursed by the money 
 which his ancestors gathered together, his riches hinder¬ 
 ing his manly development ! How many are covetous 
 and grasping ! Think of the want and the crime; think 
 of the licentiousness and intemperance; of the sickness 
 which cuts off such hosts of men in childhood, while only 
 here and there one dies a natural death. Consider all 
 the ghastly forms of irregular action which you find in a 
 great city, in Boston, New York, London. Think of the 
 indispensable attendants of a great town — hospitals, 
 asylums for the crazy and the old, for orphan babes, 
 almshouses, jails of manifold denominations—the moral 
 sewerage of the town,—of the police, swarming like buz¬ 
 zards in the streets to remove the refuse of mankind. 
 The constable never sleeps. The jail-van is always in 
 motion. Law and crime jostle each other in all the 
 street. Gluttony and beggary meet at every corner. St 
 James and St Giles glower at each other in Christian 
 London. The angel of mercy follows the footsteps of 
 the prostitutes, and watches over the bedside of her 
 
THE ECONOMY OE MORAL ERROR. 
 
 237 
 
 brother who made them such. What pain and misery in 
 modern society ! Boston is one of the most favourable 
 specimens of a modern town, almost equally charitable 
 and rich, but even here a good man can hardly walk the 
 public streets and then repeat his private prayers without 
 a shudder,—his heart making great leaps as he remem¬ 
 bers the ignorance and misery about him. 
 
 This suffering is an “abomination to the Lord/* as 
 much as the older heathen form of making children 
 “ pass through the fire unto Moloch; ** it is against the 
 ideal of human nature. But if you look a moment you 
 see the cause of the misery and its function. Man is 
 finite, social, gifted with partial freedom, progressive 
 also. Sociality on a large scale is indispensable to his 
 development; great cities are as necessary for mankind 
 as a garment for a boy. They have ever been the fire¬ 
 places of human education—intellectual, moral, and re¬ 
 ligious development. Man*s advance in general develop¬ 
 ment must take place by the aid, in part, of large 
 combinations of men. To form them, nay, to group a 
 hundred men together, he must make experiments. 
 They may fail through Errors or Mistakes. All human 
 advance, social or individual, is progression by experi¬ 
 ment. If men do not suffer from the failure they will not 
 know it is a failure; will continue it and perish. 
 
 Suppose men made a social experiment and it failed in 
 consequence of the intellectual or moral deficiency of the 
 projectors, because it did not fulfil the economical or 
 moral conditions of social well-being; suppose we did not 
 suffer pain from the consequences of this Mistake and 
 Error, and consequently continued in it and never rectified 
 what was amiss in our experiment; would that be a better 
 scheme than the present one ? It is as idle to grumble at 
 Providence because men suffer from social Mistakes and 
 Errors, as to find fault with God because a mill does not 
 grind corn when its wheels are placed on the wrong side 
 of the dam. I wish to write, but have put no ink in my 
 pen. Shall God fill it for me miraculously; or enable me 
 to write with a dry quill ? He gave me the head and 
 hand to furnish ink withal; mankind the head and hand 
 to organize communities aright. My disappointment and 
 the world*s misery notify us to take heed. 
 
238 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 When the social machine is so constructed that it pro¬ 
 vides shelter, food, raiment, education, deficient in quality 
 or in quantity, or distributes these needful things in an 
 unnatural and therefore unsatisfactory manner, is it not a 
 wise and benevolent contrivance that pain should warn us 
 of the Mistake and Error ? If the bodies of the neglected 
 poor did not shiver with cold and damp and wet ; if they 
 did not ache with hunger, with fear, and the troop of 
 ghastly diseases which invade the rearward ranks of men 
 in all our human march; if ennui and the multiform mala¬ 
 dies of body and spirit did not at.tack and disturb the 
 class of men whose natural social burdens are borne by 
 others; if crime did not rise up and cry with its inarticu¬ 
 late mowings against the social waste and wrong; if the 
 exploitered servant did not take his revenge by unfaithful¬ 
 ness ; if the neglected, the poor, the outcast, did not steal 
 and rob, burn houses, and murder men; if the slave did 
 not run away, did not waste his employers' goods, and 
 slay their children; if the spoiled child did not turn out a 
 profligate, and gnaw the bosom which bore him,—men 
 would persevere in their social folly and perish. Animals 
 are unconsciously taught by instinct—gregarious not 
 social. Their organization into packs and flocks and herds 
 is made ready for them like the pattern of their nests, and 
 the garment which grows on their shoulders. Man is 
 consciously teachable, self-instructive; he learns by ex¬ 
 periment ; not merely gregarious but social, he is to con¬ 
 struct his own social organization, as his garments and his 
 house. There is always power enough, intellectual and 
 moral, in each generation of men to construct the social 
 or political organizations which that generation needs, 
 which correspond to its state of development at that time. 
 This is ideally demonstrable—for it follows by unavoidable 
 deduction from the infinite perfection of God; and his¬ 
 torically demonstrable from all the past ages of human 
 progress and the present condition of men. But as men 
 have a partial freedom, they may use or neglect this 
 power of social organization. If they neglect the means 
 which God has provided as adequate for His purpose and 
 their social welfare, is it not benevolent in Him to make 
 things so that pain shall ring an alarm bell, as it were, and 
 warn us of the Error ? If I will not put my cloak about 
 
THE ECONOMY OE MORAL ERROR. 
 
 239 
 
 me when, the north air bites, shall God abolish winter to 
 save me the trouble of thought ? If I have sense enough, 
 and yet wall eat green apples and not ripe ones, is it not 
 well that I suffer ? 
 
 Suppose that men not only suffered no pain in conse¬ 
 quence of their social folly in violating the natural law of 
 the universe, but they did not die in consequence of the 
 error. Then the first experiment would be the last; 
 there would be an end of progress. We should advance 
 no more than the beavers, or the bees. So there would 
 be no continued growth of the faculties of mankind, no 
 consequent increase of happiness, no qualitative advance 
 in mode, no quantitative in degree. Man would have 
 stopped long ago in some low stage of development; per¬ 
 haps never have advanced beyond the culture of the men 
 who have grown up amongst wolves in Hindostan,—a 
 barking, a ferocious, and a stupid pack. 
 
 I know how terrible this suffering is, how much in 
 quantity, of a quality how sad; how many innocent men 
 suffer from the average folly of mankind, through no Mis¬ 
 take or Error of their own. But take the whole world 
 together this pain is not in excess, and its function is 
 plainly benevolent. Before us marches the attractive Idea 
 of better things, a pillar of fire continually advancing to¬ 
 wards the promised land which flows with milk and honey; 
 behind us, the Egyptian host of ignorance, and fear, and 
 tyranny, and want, drive us on. Both are ministers of 
 God^s Providence. 
 
 See what evil comes in the Domestic Form. The ethic 
 ideal of a family demands the marriage of loving men and 
 women to their loving mates, two equivalent and free 
 persons uniting in connubial love, manhood and woman¬ 
 hood combining into humanity. But are such marriages 
 common ? Is the wife thought the equal, the equivalent 
 of the husband; is the family always based on love, con¬ 
 nubial, parental, filial, friendly love ? The masculine ele¬ 
 ment oppresses and enslaves the feminine. Man exploiters 
 woman all the world over. How many live unmarried— 
 against their nature, against their conscious will. Poly¬ 
 gamy prevails “ over three quarters of the groaning 
 globe.^ In Christendom the marriage of one to one is 
 the ecclesiastic and legal ideal, the marriage-type. Is it} 
 
240 
 
 PROVIDENCE, 
 
 also the fact ? How much is there of involuntary single¬ 
 ness—painful and against nature; how much vice of 
 many forms, odious to the thought; what unhappiness 
 from ill-assorted wedlock begun in haste, repented of at 
 leisure, but made permanent by statute and public opinion ? 
 What a world of misery comes from the Mistakes and 
 Errors men have made in the domestic organization of 
 mankind and womankind ! 
 
 Here the same reasoning applies—the proximate cause 
 of the misery is the Mistake; the function thereof is to 
 warn men and stir them to better experiments. All this 
 matter of love might have been settled by laws that could 
 not be broke, and like oaks, with no chance of mistake, 
 men might 
 
 “ languidly adjust 
 
 Their vapid, vegetable loves with anthers and with dust,” 
 
 or, like the free birds of heaven, be mated by instinct. 
 Does any one think that would be an improvement ? At¬ 
 tracted by the Ideal of a perfect family, driven by pain 
 from the actual, mankind moves on, each generation of 
 Jacobs and Rachels improving over the family of their 
 predecessors, and with a continual increase of domestic 
 bliss. The pain which comes from married and unmarried 
 Error is not excessive for its work. Look the world over, 
 disguising nothing, and you see how nicely this misery is 
 fitted for its function, and one day it will end. Only the 
 boy cries over his multiplication table. 
 
 See the evil which comes of Mistakes and Errors in Re¬ 
 ligion—from Errors about Piety, its sentimental part, about 
 Theology, its theoretical part, and Morality, its practical 
 part. Absolute Religion is the service of the Infinite 
 God by the normal use, development, and enjoyment of 
 every limb of the body, every faculty of the spirit, every 
 power which we possess over matter or man. This is a 
 service which is “ perfect freedom.” This is the Ideal of 
 religion ; nothing short of this answers to the spiritual 
 nature of man and the natural law of God. Everything 
 short of this is an Error, or a Mistake. 
 
 But no considerable body of men has yet attained this 
 Form of Religion. It is not consciously made the ideal of 
 any sect of religionists in the world. How much suffering 
 arises from the common notions of religion in the most 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR. 
 
 241 
 
 enlightened nations ! I have spoken of this so often in 
 previous sermons that it is needless to say much now. 
 But what fear among “ Believers ” of the popular theology, 
 what littleness, what absurd singleness of the soul which 
 longs for union with God ; what meanness and cowardice 
 is found in men who try to wring and twist themselves 
 into the spiritual contortions demanded by Hebrew, Ma¬ 
 hometan, or Christian Priests ! What spiritual hunger is 
 there of Unbelievers ! The ecclesiastical bodies founded 
 on the popular Mistakes and Errors—how impotent they 
 are to lead the nation to any great good work ! What 
 manifold evils come of this cause ! Look at the condition 
 of the Christian world : its general Theology scornfully 
 rejected by scientific men; the Roman Church dead ; the 
 Greek Church for many centuries without life; the Pro¬ 
 testant Churches of Europe divided, feeble, ruled like 
 armies by kings; and in many places what is officially 
 called “ Religion,” exacted of the people by the tax-ga¬ 
 therer and the constable; the Churches of America divided, 
 wrangling, and all unable to direct in natural ways the 
 immense energies of this great Commonwealth;—nay, not 
 daring to oppose the colossal Errors and Sins of the nation, 
 or even to rebuke the political atheism which denies the 
 Higher Law of God ! See what imbecility comes from a 
 theology which calls on its followers to renounce reason ; 
 for the sake of being spiritual, to give up the exercise of 
 their spirit. What pain comes from belief in eternal 
 punishment, the priest tormenting men before their time ! 
 What misery comes from fearing a dreadful God ! Look 
 at the oppression still practised in the name of religion— 
 in Italy men shut in a Christian jail for reading the Chris¬ 
 tian Bible; in almost every Christian state laws forbid¬ 
 ding freedom of speech on matters relating to Christianity, 
 the gallows reaching its arm over the pulpit. See how 
 many men in America are driven to infidelity, to denial of 
 all conscious religion, by the absurdities taught in its 
 name*; how many are annually forced to hospitals for 
 lunatics, incurably crazed by what is called religion. Ac¬ 
 quisitiveness is doubtless the disease of America just now ; 
 but the lust of money is less powerful than the popular 
 theology in bringing men to public Bedlam. 
 
 The theological mistake is incidental to human nature, 
 
 VOL. xi. — Theism , §c. 16 
 
212 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 —finite, free, progressive; tlie misery is an unavoidable 
 result of the mistake, and has a benevolent function 
 under the Providence of God. As perfect Cause He fore¬ 
 knew the history of mankind, all our Mistakes in religious 
 matters, and wisely put pain as an unavoidable conse¬ 
 quence of avoidable Mistakes and Errors. If the mass of 
 men in Northern Europe had not suffered from the false 
 theology, false morality, false piety, and manifold oppres¬ 
 sion in the name of God imposed on them by the Homan 
 Church, the world had been under Leos and Juliuses and 
 Adrians to this day. Had not the unsatisfactory schemes 
 of the Roman, Grecian, Hebrew theologies given pain to 
 mankind, Christianity would have perished with Jesus; 
 nay, if men had not suffered from the mistakes of Egyp¬ 
 tian priests, Moses would never have led Israel out of the 
 iron house of bondage and the gross darkness which 
 covered the people. The oxen suffer not from the letters 
 which their master burns upon their horns; the Roman 
 ass is not pained by the image of St Anthony which his 
 superstitious master puts on him with a priestly blessing; 
 if men suffered no more from false ideas of religion, we 
 should be as oxen and asses, driven by other masters, and 
 that to our ruin. 
 
 In religion, as elsewhere, God has provided for a con¬ 
 tinual progress; but it is all progression by experiment; 
 by many experiments which fail we reach the one that 
 succeeds, and through the Red Sea escape from Egypt to 
 the Land of Promise. How long it took mankind to invent 
 a machine driven by a river, or a flame of fire, that could 
 spin and weave cotton ! And does it appear strange that 
 man should err long and wide before he attains a perfect 
 scheme of religion ? Fetichism was once a triumph, and 
 satisfied the aspirations of devout mankind; next man 
 outgrew it, but cautious and conservative still sought to 
 wear the strait, scant girdle which devoured his loins; at 
 length, urged by intolerable pain, attracted by a better 
 idea, he threw it away. Polytheism, Hebraism, Classic 
 Deism, Romanism, have the same history, the same fate— 
 once prayed for, then outgrown, and next prayed against 
 and cast away. But the good of each is continually pre¬ 
 served. The Mosaic religion was an advance over the 
 popular service of God in Egypt four thousand years ago; 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR. 
 
 243 
 
 the Jewish form of Christianity rose far above Moses; the 
 Panline form transcended that ; Romanism is a com¬ 
 promise between the Christianity of Paul, the Mosaism of 
 the Hebrews, and the Polytheism of the Greeks and 
 Romans. The human race went forward as they became 
 Catholic Christians. Luther took a step in advance of 
 Rome; Zuingle, Calvin, his fellow-reformers, great men 
 all of them, helped us still further on. But, pained by 
 their imperfections, cheered by the Spirit of God in the 
 soul of man which still tells of lands of promise before us, 
 and still sends fire-pillars in every night to show the way 
 over sands that furnish water, and through rivers which 
 dry up to let us pass—the race still journeys on from 
 Thebes to Jerusalem, from that to Rome, thence to 
 Wittenberg, Basle, Geneva, Westminster; and there is 
 no end. Every step in religion is an experiment; if a 
 wrong step it is painful. But the pain is medical. The 
 fires of Moloch in Syria; the harsh mutilations in the 
 name of Astarte, Cybele, Jehovah ; the barbarities of im¬ 
 perial pagan tormentors; the still grosser torments which 
 Romano-Gothic Christians in Italy and Spain heaped on 
 their brother-men, the fiendish cruelties to which Switzer¬ 
 land, France, the Netherlands, England, Scotland, Ireland, 
 America have been witness, are not too powerful to warn 
 men of the unspeakable evils which follow from Mistakes 
 and Errors in this matter of religion. The present suffer¬ 
 ings from belief and unbelief, it is easy to learn the lesson 
 which they read. If we misuse the deepest and most 
 powerful force in man, the pain which comes therefrom 
 must needs be great. To pluck out a hair brings little 
 pain; but to rend off a limb, to tear out an eye—a dread¬ 
 ful misery forbids that sacrilege. Did not pain warn the 
 Christian nations, the Protestant and the Catholic, as it 
 ever has warned all loiterers, all wanderers, we should 
 stray further and further from our God, or else stop in our 
 onward march ; and in either case lose the progressive 
 joy of manly development of our religious powers. 
 
 There is now intellectual and moral power enough act¬ 
 ive in the present generation to correct the evils of the 
 popular theology of Christendom, the defects of its eccle¬ 
 siastical machinery, and so to remove the suffering which 
 comes from that. If we fail to apply these powers to this 
 
 16 * 
 
244 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 work, it is surely wise in the great Father to have so 
 made the world that pain shall at length compel us to 
 put off the shoe which pinches, and not suffer the foot to 
 be spoiled. 
 
 This fourfold Error in the formation of the State, the 
 Community, the Family, and the Church—has brought a 
 flood of misery upon the world. But it has forced man¬ 
 kind to a fourfold improvement—political, social, domestic, 
 religious ; to a fourfold increase of human delight and 
 blessedness. Every age has power to mend its machinery 
 and to devise better. These Mistakes and Errors were 
 foreseen by the Infinite God, at the creation, provided for, 
 and the checks to them all made ready beforehand. Even 
 here there is nothing imperfect, but the motive, material, 
 purpose, and means continually reveal infinite perfections 
 of God. 
 
 You see how a child makes Mistakes in getting com- 
 ,mand of his bodv; how he stumbles in learning* to walk 
 and hurts his limbs by the fall; but his wise mother 
 cheers and encourages him. How he hurts his hands and 
 feet before he learns the qualities thereof, and their normal 
 relation to the things they touch ! What experiments he 
 makes that fail before he learns the economic conditions 
 which hedge him in ! See how mankind toils and ex¬ 
 periments in getting the entire command of any of our 
 present instruments, living or inanimate. What pain 
 comes of each Mistake ! The ox gores his master; the 
 horse throws him; Actaeon's hounds devour their lord—it 
 is more than fable; the Pine-bender is snatched up in his 
 own tree. What a useful thing is fire; what a powerful 
 instrument in the world's civilization ! It has been do¬ 
 mesticated, I doubt not, some twenty or thirty thousand 
 years. But even now what Mistakes we make in its use; 
 what evils it brings ! not a venturesome baby in the best 
 ordered family, but puts his finger to the flame and starts 
 when that schoolmaster sharply reminds him of the dis¬ 
 tinction between the Me and the Not-Me; uot a little 
 village, never so dull, but it loses now and then a house, 
 or barn, by this unruly servant; not a city but has its 
 conflagration, its police and engines to quell the element 
 and keep the fire within its limits. Condense a thousand 
 million men to one great consciousness ; consider the hu- 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR. 
 
 245 
 
 man race as one man twenty or thirty thousand years old, 
 all his burnings do not make a greater proportionate 
 amount of suffering than what befalls our venturesome 
 weanling who puts his disobedient fingers in the candle^s 
 flame. Would it be benevolent in God to take from boy 
 or man the possibility of a Mistake in the use of fire, the 
 consciousness of pain from such a Mistake ? 
 
 Steam will probably work as great a change in the 
 affairs of man, in domestic, social, political relations, as 
 fire has done hitherto. But see what havoc it now makes 
 of human life, with such reckless men in America tumultu- 
 ating over land and water so heedless of the unchanging 
 laws of God. What pain we suffer in getting command 
 of this instrument! It has been so with all the forces of 
 Nature which man has tamed and domesticated. The 
 entire amount of suffering is always proportionate to our 
 lack of skill to manage the instrument; the more valuable 
 the forces are, the longer it takes to learn all their powers 
 and acquire the full mastery over them. It* is easy to 
 tame a dove, hard to domesticate thunder and lightning. 
 
 In the fifteenth century there were three Magi in Eu¬ 
 rope, new-comers, looking for One born king of the world, 
 —Mariners Compass, Gunpowder, Printing-press, such 
 were their titles. What a world of mischief they wrought, 
 disturbing everybody,—coasters, crossbowmen, scribes ! 
 What spread of mischievous falsehoods took place; what 
 slaughter of men; what shipwreck in mid ocean ! How 
 grim they looked ! But those Magi, all three of them, 
 came out of the eternal East of human Consciousness; 
 following “ the star which once stood still over a stable,” 
 they now fall down before Democracy, the Desire of all 
 Nations ; while Herod seeks the young child^s life to de¬ 
 stroy him, they open their treasuries and present gifts, 
 their gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 
 
 Now to get the full mastery over the spirit of man, to 
 learn all the complicated powers of mind and conscience, 
 heart and soul, so that mankind shall know all their modes 
 of action, individual and social, as the chemist and the 
 housewife know the powers and modes of action of fire, or 
 as the engineer knows the powers and capabilities of 
 steam; to provide these various complicated and pro¬ 
 gressive faculties with their proper harness and machinery 
 
246 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 — political, social, domestic, ecclesiastic, — for all their 
 manifold purposes—that is a task far greater than the 
 taming of cattle, the domestication of fire and steam; far 
 more difficult, requiring far more time for the work, and 
 demanding innumerable experiments, continued for thou¬ 
 sands of years, each incidentally subject to failure, and 
 that unavoidably attended by pain and misery which can 
 only be removed by correcting the Error, and mending 
 the Mistake. But the misery is all along remedial, is 
 never excessive for its work and function. God achieves 
 the maximum of effect with the minimum of means ; the 
 maximum of welfare with the minimum of misery. The 
 whole amount of pain endured by mankind from political, 
 social, domestic, and religious Mistakes and Errors, in the 
 whole human history, is of a merciful and educational cha¬ 
 racter ; comes from the same cause, for the same purpose, 
 as the pain of burning the finger when thrust into a flame, 
 and bears no greater relation to the whole consciousness 
 of mankind than the suffering of an ordinary child in 
 growing up to maturity. 
 
 It is true the sufferings are often borne by such as had 
 no part in producing the cause of suffering, nay, who 
 sought to remove it, and on earth their misery is not ade¬ 
 quately compensated,—but this life is only a part of the 
 whole human duration, half a hundred years out of eter¬ 
 nity. The infinite Justice of God—foreknowing all, pro¬ 
 vided for everything, before the world, or an atom there¬ 
 of, was embarked on its endless voyage — must have 
 provided a compensation somewhere. This retribution to 
 the parts which suffer from the Errors of the whole must 
 take place somewhere in the world created by the perfect 
 Cause, controlled by the perfect Providence; for it is im¬ 
 possible that the Infinite God should create from an im¬ 
 perfect motive, of imperfect material, for an imperfect 
 purpose, or as imperfect means thereto. When I cannot 
 unriddle the details and see how John the Baptist and 
 Jesus are to be recompensed for their early and violent 
 death, how a recompense is to be afforded to the poor 
 daughter of want, whom the Errors of society force un¬ 
 conscious into degradation, into crime, and an unnatural 
 grave, half immature in body and wholly undeveloped in 
 all the high qualities of womanhood, I am ready to trust 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR. 
 
 247 
 
 the Infinite God. The warrant of ultimate human wel¬ 
 fare is indorsed on every person, on each living thing, in 
 the handwriting of the Infinite God; and though I could 
 not trust the promise of any of the popular finite deities, 
 I am as sure of the Infinite God as I am that one and 
 one make two, or that I myself exist. The instinctive 
 desire of human nature is God’s Promise to pay ; Eternity 
 His time. 
 
 Then look at the pain and misery which come from the 
 intellectual Mistakes and moral Errors of mankind; leave 
 out nothing, diminish nothing, look St Giles' in the face; 
 study the sufferings of all the Irelands of the earth ; con¬ 
 front all the wars of the world; meet eye to eye that 
 most hideous of living monsters, American Slavery, the 
 lifeblood of three million men dripping from the demo¬ 
 cratic hand;—examine the political, social, domestic, and 
 religious wretchedness of mankind, does it amount to 
 Absolute Evil ? Is there any reason to think so ? Surely 
 not. Are present pain and misery excessive for their un¬ 
 avoidable and merciful function ? Scrutinize with the 
 nicest analysis of science, and you must confess that so 
 far as the facts are known the benevolence of Providence 
 perpetually appears; and so far as the analogy reaches 
 the same conclusion follows. 
 
 Then comes the scientific idea of the Infinite God to 
 fill up the chasms which science leaves unfilled. A church, 
 a family, a community, a State, is each a machine formed 
 of human materials, wherewith to achieve-the religious, 
 domestic, social, and political welfare of mankind: if the 
 machine be a poor or ineffective tool, is it plainly wise 
 and merciful, nay, just and loving, that pain should warn 
 us of the insufficiency of the instrument; and repeat the 
 warning till we have abandoned it and made a wiser ex¬ 
 periment ? As the centripetal and centrifugal forces in 
 the solar system are just sufficient to keep each planet in 
 its orbit, rhythmically wheeling about the sun, with no de¬ 
 ficiency, and no redundance, so is the pain which follows 
 human Error but just enough to warn us of the ruin and 
 hold us back. The astronomical conclusion is mathema¬ 
 tically demonstrable from the facts of observation and the 
 intuitions of consciousness; the human conclusion is not 
 yet inducible from facts of observation, but deducible 
 
PROVIDENCE. 
 
 O i Q 
 u tcO 
 
 with most rigorous science from the idea of God as Infi¬ 
 nite. The amount of misery is a variable quantity, con¬ 
 trolled by the conduct of mankind; we diminish it just 
 as we learn and keep the natural laws of God, the 
 original human means He has provided for His divine 
 purpose. 
 
 So much for the Evil which comes from Mistakes and 
 Errors. 
 
 Look next at the Evil of Sin—the pain and misery 
 which come thereof. A man knows the moral law of God; 
 he has learned it by experiment, or by intuition which 
 anticipates experience; he knows the true, the moral 
 beautiful, the just, the affectional, the holy. Conscience 
 is powerful enough to say “ Thou oughtest! ” There it 
 stops and leaves us free to obey, or disobey. It does not 
 say, “ Thou must! Thou shalt! ;; It does not hold us 
 bound. I know the right; I have the power to do, or to 
 refuse to do it. That is my freedom, my most subtle, 
 most dangerous gift; it is the most precious too. Per¬ 
 haps I shall not do the right I know I ought; I will not 
 make the ideal of my moral nature the actual of my daily 
 work. If the moral or religious faculty compelled me, I 
 should be its slave; not a free man, only a bare tool of 
 the Almighty. If conscience compels me to realize the 
 Ideal it reveals, if the affections force me to live out my 
 ideal love for man, and the soul constrain me to acts of 
 holiness, then I only gravitate to my ideal; I cease to be 
 a free spiritual individuality. It is not I that love, but 
 the force which acts through me, foreign though divine. 
 I obey it voluntarily, then the will of God becomes my 
 personal act, I am a conscious co-worker with the Infi¬ 
 nite. I am not a moral fossil, not a moral animal, but a 
 moral man. I feel at one with myself; all my high facul¬ 
 ties consent to the Ideal of my conscience and conform in 
 this act of will. I am self-balanced; my own centre of 
 gravity is my centre of motion also ; my will accords with 
 the will of God; He and I are at one; His will my work. 
 I have the delight of my freedom well employed. 
 
 If I do not obey my sense of right straightway there 
 comes remorse; I gnaw upon myself. My wrong dis¬ 
 turbs the integrity of the universe. I am not at ease. 
 Conscious of violating my own integrity, I feel ashamed 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR. 
 
 249 
 
 and inwardly tormented because the ideal of my mind 
 and conscience, heart and soul, is not the actual of my 
 conduct. 
 
 This is the first subjective consequence of Sin; it is a 
 form of pain peculiar, distinct from all other modes of 
 suffering. I suppose every grown man knows what it is. 
 I will not speak from observation of others, but from con¬ 
 sciousness and my own inward experience ; I know the 
 remorse which comes from conscious violation of my own 
 integrity,'from treason to myself and my God, from con¬ 
 sciousness of sacrificing my universal Ideal of the true, 
 the just, the moral beautiful, the affectional, the holy, to 
 some private personal caprice. It transcends all bodily 
 pain, all grief at disappointed schemes, all anguish which 
 comes from the sickness, yea, from the death, of dear 
 ones prematurely sent away. To these afflictions I can 
 bow with “ Thy will, not mine, be done/'’ But remorse, 
 the pain of Sin—that is my work. This comes obviously 
 to warn us of the ruin which lies before us; for as the 
 violation of the natural material conditions of bodily life 
 leads to dissolution of the body, so the wilful, constant 
 violation of the natural conditions of spiritual well-being 
 leads to the destruction thereof. So the pain of remorse 
 comes wisely and mercifully to warn me from my ruin. 
 It anticipates the outward consequence; it comes as the 
 disagreeable smell, or warning look, or repulsive taste of 
 poison. A State with no statute against high-treason, no 
 punishment therefor, would be exceedingly imperfect. 
 Remorse is the subjective consequence, the penal retribu¬ 
 tion, yea, the medicine and cure for this high-treason 
 against the soul and against its God. 
 
 The outward consequences of Sin are the same as those 
 of Error or Mistake, and require no specific description. 
 
 Sin is a wrong choice; a preference of the wrong way 
 to the right one. No man loves the wrong for its own 
 sake, as an end, but as a means for some actual good it 
 is thought to lead to. It is one of the incidents of our 
 attempt to get command over all our faculties. In learn¬ 
 ing to walk, how often we stumble; we stammer in 
 attempts to speak; and babies babble long before they 
 talk. In learning to read, to write, how children mistake 
 the letters, miscall the sounds, miswrite the words ! Sin 
 
250 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 is a corresponding incident—we learn self-command by 
 experiments, experiments which fail. 
 
 I think this evil is rather underrated. Consciously to 
 violate the integrity of your spirit is a worse evil than 
 men seem to fancy. Oh ! young man, expect Error of 
 yourself, expect Mistakes. Your eye deceives you, so 
 may your mind and conscience, your heart and soul. 
 Expect also analogous wanderings in getting self-com¬ 
 mand. But do not tolerate any conscious violations of 
 your own integrity; the experience of that will torment 
 you long, till sorrow has washed the maiming brand out 
 of your memory, and long years of goodness have filled 
 up the smarting scar. Men grown see the right, see it 
 plainly ; it does not serve their special turn, in trade, in 
 politics, in the pursuit of pleasure or of power. They 
 trample their ideal under-foot. The subjective pain and 
 misery which comes thereof, is a just and merciful con¬ 
 trivance of the eternal Father. 
 
 There are men of little excellence, but of great conceit, 
 bigoted men, wonted to the machinery of social and 
 ecclesiastical routine, their wheels deep in the ruts of 
 custom, omitting the weighty matters of love to men and 
 God; who tithe mint, anise, and cumin, and thank God 
 continually that they are not like the publican ; to such 
 men a sin, a rousing public sin, will do good, and in 
 heaven they may thank God for it. I have known such 
 men, and have thought if they could commit some great 
 Sin, they might become less sinful. Jesus told a rich 
 man,—probably one wedded to wealth,—to sell all he 
 had and give to the poor. There are men so conceited 
 with their own excellence, and besotted with custom, 
 that I have sometimes thought the same Jesus would tell 
 them to do some monstrous thing and get ashamed of 
 themselves, and learn how worthless is their self-conceit. 
 But the Sin-cure, even for such a man, is like healing 
 rheumatism by burning the afflicted member to the 
 bone. 
 
 As we get command over the body only by experiment, 
 learning to run, to walk, to swim only by trial; as by 
 experiment we learn the rules of expediency and of right, 
 learning each with many Mistakes and Errors, with many 
 a pain; so by experiments are we to learn the proper 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR. 
 
 251 
 
 uses of the will, to keep the law of God when known. It 
 is only in this way that the individual, the family, the 
 community, the State, the world knows the power of the 
 personal or the accumulated will, and how to keep the 
 law of God when known. So there are moral experi¬ 
 ments in all these forms, and Sins of the Family, the 
 Community, the Nation, and the World, which come as 
 incidents of human development. The pain thereof is an 
 unavoidable consequence of the transgression, and a 
 warning that the trespass has been wrought. I am glad 
 it cost me efforts to learn to speak, to walk, to know the 
 rule of right, else were I less a man. The pains I have 
 felt from Errors here are joyous pains at last. So too am 
 I glad God gave me power to go astray even when I 
 know the right; glad that it costs me hard efforts to 
 learn the uses of my will, to subject the transient caprice 
 of personal desire to the eternal true, right, moral, beau¬ 
 tiful, lovely, and holy of the Infinite God. And though 
 remorse has been my keenest pain, I know it is my 
 highest birthright, which the pain stands over and guards 
 as watchful sentinel. At the creation, the perfect Cause 
 knew all the future wanderings of each man, the Mistakes 
 of the intellect, the Errors of the conscience, the Sins of 
 the will; and as the check thereto'He mercifully appointed 
 pain to come to the individual, family, community, the 
 nation, and the world. 
 
 Theologians often talk mythologically about Sin, as if 
 there was something mysterious in its origin, its cause, 
 its process, its result, and final end. They tell us that 
 as it is a transgression against the Infinite God, so it is 
 an Infinite Evil, meaning an absolute evil, demanding an 
 eternal punishment. To this scholastic folly it is enough 
 to reply, that if sin be for this reason an Absolute Evil, 
 then, the smallest suffering coming from an Infinite God 
 is an Infinite Suffering, and cancels the Sin. 
 
 Sin is said to be a “ Fall •” yea, as the child’s attempt 
 to walk is a stumble. But the child through stumbling 
 learns to walk erect; every fall is a fall upward. Creep¬ 
 ing is an advance over stillness, stumbling over creeping. 
 In the yearling boy the feet are soft and tender, the legs 
 feeble, unable to sustain the pulpy frame. But the in¬ 
 stinct of motion stirs the young master of creation to 
 
252 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 press forward; not content with creeping, he tries to 
 walk, he falls, and cries with pain. He dries at length 
 his tears, and tries and falls again, again to weep. But 
 gradually, by trial, the limbs grow strong, the eye steady; 
 he walks erect; he runs down steep places; up and down 
 the snow-clad Alps Hannibal marches through the winter, 
 leading his army of men each a stumbling baby once. 
 
 Through weakness of mind and conscience we may err 
 —the Error has its check, and Nature has the cure. No 
 mistake is eternal. At first the little child pricked with 
 a pin only feels pained in his general consciousness, not 
 discriminating the special spot that smarts. By and by, 
 instructed by experience of pain, and so familiar with the 
 geography of his little world of flesh, when hurt he lays 
 his hand on the afflicted spot to localize the grief; at 
 length he learns to scrutinize the cause and to apply the 
 cure. Thus is it with mankind. Weakness of the Affec¬ 
 tions, of the Soul, of the Will, is not eternal. Sin, with 
 its consequent pain, is transient as Errors and Mistakes. 
 Stumblings of the body, the mind and conscience, heart 
 and soul, belong to babyhood—the early or the late; in¬ 
 cidents of our development. If the first step is a fall— 
 the step is still a progress, the fall is forward. In the 
 days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, how poorly women 
 spun and wove. But the bungling craft of Sarah, Re¬ 
 becca, and Rachel, does not retard the mill of Manchester, 
 of Lowell, and Lyons. From Sarah to Jacquard what a 
 stride ! millions of experiments that failed strew all the 
 way. • The mistakes of the first farmers nobody copies 
 now; but the cereal grasses, which, as the story tells, a 
 mythologic queen first brought to Italy, all round the 
 temperate world grow corn for daily bread. What have 
 I to do with the stammering of my fathers ten thousand 
 years ago, when the language had but a hundred words, 
 perhaps? Does it bar me from eloquence and all the nice 
 distinctions of scientific speech ? Nay, my own blunders 
 in babyhood, boyhood, manhood—blunders of the body, 
 of the spirit—do they disturb me now ? They are out¬ 
 grown and half-forgot. I learned something by each one. 
 So is it with Sin, the world’s Sin, your Sin and mine. 
 Pain checks all heedless motion; we learn the lesson, but 
 forget the pain. 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MOEAL EEEOE. 253 
 
 Men start, in these times, with the idea of a dreadful 
 God, who made men badly at first, and then set them 
 a-going; wdien they stumble He falls on them, brings 
 them to the ground and crushes them down to endless 
 hell; only a few He sends His Son to help and lift up— 
 all the rest lie there and rot in everlasting woe. The pain 
 of this folly will one day drive us from the greatest Error 
 of the Human race—from the belief in a devilish God and 
 an eternal Hell. Our successors will forget it as we the 
 follies of our sires who worshipped stocks and stones 
 before they dreamed of Odin and of Thor. 
 
 See now the obvious use of Pain and Misery,—they are 
 plainly beneficent. In the State, the Community, the 
 Family, the Church, the Individual Man, it is not hard to 
 see their general function. Evil is partial. There is no 
 Absolute Evil. Man advances for ever—the perfect means 
 goes forward to achieve the perfect purpose. Man oscil¬ 
 lates in his march as the moon nods in her course. Pain 
 marks the limit of his vibration ; the variables of human 
 caprice are perpetually controlled by the constants of di¬ 
 vine Providence. Once man, prone and mute, was the 
 slave of Nature, the absolute savage, the wild man of the 
 woods, over-mastered by his elementary instincts which so 
 jealously keep watch over the individual and the race; 
 that comrade of the wolf, with many a painful step has 
 journeyed on—his life a progress, his march triumphal. 
 See what the past life of mankind has brought about—• 
 fixed habitations, language, letters, arts, science, litera¬ 
 ture, laws, manners, religion. What a growth from tho 
 time when these ten fingers were the only tools of man, 
 and all his mightier faculties lay below the horizon of 
 his consciousness ! 
 
 Look at the evils of our time—as political oppression, 
 the strong nations ruling the weak with iron rods, the 
 government exploitering the people ; look at war, at so¬ 
 cial oppression, the strong laying their burdens on the 
 weak, in this age of commercial tyranny, at despotism by 
 the dollar which takes the place of the old despotism by 
 the sword; look at slavery—total in Carolina, partial in 
 all Christendom ; domestic oppression, woman exploitered 
 by man; ecclesiastical oppression—false Ideas of God, of 
 Man, of the Relation between the two, form a three- 
 
254 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 pronged spear wherewith Superstition goads the race of 
 men in all lands. Look at poverty, ignorance, drunken¬ 
 ness, prostitution, murder, theft, and every vice. What 
 misery comes of all these evils ! But they were all fore¬ 
 seen and are provided for in the careful housekeeping of 
 God. The past history shows what checks there always 
 have been; what powers come forth equal to each emerg¬ 
 ency. If the world were to end to-day—it would seem a 
 failure, man ; s desires not satisfied, the budding promise 
 of the race not growing into fruit, or even flower. But 
 this is only the beginning of the history of man on earth, 
 
 u A thousand years scarce serve to form a State ; ” 
 
 many a thousand years there must be to form the great 
 Commonwealth of Man where the perfect State, Com¬ 
 munity, Family, and Church shall have their home. 
 
 The pain of Sin is the pain of surgery, nay, the pain of 
 growth. My sin-burnt soul dreads the consuming fire, 
 its pain a partial good. God provided for it all, making 
 all things work together for good. My suffering shames 
 me from conscious wrong, stings me into efforts ever new; 
 and I flee from consuming Sodom with a swifter flight. 
 The loving-kindness of the Infinite Mother has provided 
 also for this evil, for its cure. There is retribution every¬ 
 where—for I am conditioned by the moral law of God. 
 In youth Passion tempts me to violate the integrity of my 
 consciousness with its excess, I love the pleasure of the 
 flesh; in manhood Ambition offers the more dangerous 
 temptation, I love the profit of selfishness. If I yield and 
 sacrifice the eternal Beauty of the true, the just, the good, 
 the holy to the riot of debauch, or to the calculated self¬ 
 ishness of that ambition, there comes the subjective con¬ 
 sequence,—a sense of falseness, of shame, a loathing of 
 myself, the leprous feeling that I am unclean, the sleep¬ 
 less worm which gnaws the self-condemning heart; then 
 comes the outward evil, the resultant of my wrong,—men 
 band against me, to check my wicked deeds. One wheel 
 is blocked by remorse; and human opposition holds the 
 other fast. So suffering keeps my w r rong in check. I am 
 thus pained by every evil thing I do. In the next life I 
 hope to suffer till I learn the mastery of myself, and keep 
 the conditions of my higher life. Through the Bed Sea 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR. 
 
 255 
 
 of pain I will march to the promised land, the divine 
 Ideal guiding from before, the Egyptian Actual urging 
 from behind. 
 
 Liability to Mistake, to Error, and to Sin, is the indis¬ 
 pensable condition of human freedom. That is not abso¬ 
 lute, but partial, relative. I know the Infinite Father 
 holds the line which tethers me; that He gave to man 
 this human nature in us all, with just the quality and 
 quantity of powers needful as means to execute His per¬ 
 fect purpose and fulfil His perfect motive. I know that 
 He will draw us back and lead us home at last, losing 
 none of His flock, dropping no son of perdition by the 
 way; but a great way off meeting His prodigals a-com- 
 ing home, or if they only will to come; yea. He has means 
 which move their will without constraint, for He is In¬ 
 finite God, the perfect Cause, the perfect Providence. The 
 world He makes, from a perfect motive, of a perfect 
 material, for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect means, is 
 the best world which the infinite God could make; the 
 best of all possible Creators must make the best of all 
 possible worlds—with the minimum of pain securing the 
 maximum of bliss. 
 
 Men often exaggerate the amount of Sin—its quantita¬ 
 tive evil, not its qualitative. Much which passes by this 
 name is Mistake, or Error ; many depraved deeds are 
 done with little depravity, perhaps with none. I see the 
 evils which come of conscious or unconscious wrong. 
 Here are men who walk the streets self-mutilated of limb, 
 or feature, by violation of the body’s laws; others maimed, 
 still worse, of limb, or feature, of the spirit. Is their Error, 
 their Sin, an Absolute Evil ? The Infinity of God forbids. 
 The Man-butcher of New Zealand, the Man-stealer of 
 New England have not fallen beyond lifting up. One 
 day the better nature of each shall be wakened. Even 
 such transgression is not absolute. The liigh-priests in 
 Jerusalem who paid Judas his thirty pieces, the price of 
 blood shed by his treachery; the low priests in Boston 
 who paid the latest kidnapper his fee, their praises and 
 their prayers, alike the price of blood shed by his treach¬ 
 ery, they are under the Providence of the Infinite Mother 
 who at the beginning provided for all of her children. All 
 
256 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 these shall one day measure their lives by the golden rule 
 of Love. 
 
 I see the enormous mass of human misery which comes 
 of Mistakes, Errors, Sins. I see its cause; I know its 
 prophecy. It tells me of the vast powers of man—of the 
 individual, and the race. The power of wrong is but a 
 mistaken power of right. The wicked Statutes men enact, 
 come as incidents in the nation's moral growth; the wars, 
 the tyrannies, the slaveries of old time and modern days, 
 are wanderings from the path we are to take; local, 
 partial, only for a time. The devastations wrought by 
 misdirection of the religious faculty reveal its power, and 
 foretell its normal triumph in time to come. I lift my eyes 
 from the present to the past. What a triumphal progress 
 has been the ma,rch of man !. Still is the human face set 
 forward. The Cannibal in New Zealand is far above the 
 wolf-bred child in Hindostan; far before the merely 
 savage man. Even the Kidnapper of New England is in 
 advance of the Cannibal of the Pacific. The increase of 
 crime in all Europe since the revival of letters, marks a 
 step forward* Immortality is for each man. Eternity 
 stretches out before the race. And in the protracted 
 childhood and great Errors of man I foresee his manly 
 and majestic march in days to come. God bound the 
 beasts ; it was in mercy to them. Only by change of 
 body can the adult animal advance. For them there is no 
 progress of the family, the tribe, or race. Little is left 
 for their free choice; so as they venture little, they win 
 no more. The God of oxen provides for them as Infinite 
 Providence, by His will, not their own. But the larger 
 venture in man is liable to worse contingencies of ill; 
 destined also to produce a higher resultant of bliss. 
 
 Tell me of war, of slavery, of want, of political, social, 
 domestic oppression; tell me of the grim terrors of the 
 Popular Theology—its religion a torment, its immortality 
 a curse, its deity a devil; tell me of Atheism, its doubts, 
 its denial, its despair,—its here and no Hereafter, its 
 body without a Soul, its world without a God;—tell me 
 what pain and misery come of all these, and by the great¬ 
 ness of. the aberration I measure the greatness of the 
 orbit and the orb; for in the centre of the universe, its 
 ever-present Cause, its ever-active Providence, I see the 
 
THE ECONOMY OF MORAL ERROR. 
 
 257 
 
 Infinite God, I feel Him immanent in every particle of 
 matter, in each atom of Spirit; and how can I fear ? The 
 nodding of a school-boy’s top is not the measure for the 
 oscillations of a world. 
 
 The greatest present evil is small compared to what 
 man has already lived through and so far overpowered, 
 that most men deem it blasphemy to say they ever were. 
 Absolute Evil is not in Error, its misery is its check, 
 points to its cure, helps to its end. Is it in Sin ? Yea, 
 if Sin were endless; to act wrong, think wrong, feel 
 wrong, be wrong,—at variance with self, with Nature, 
 and with God—that is misery, absolute evil Tvere it end¬ 
 less. Not only is all the analogy of the universe against 
 the monstrous thought, each drop of Science drained off 
 from the world of space and time corroding and eating 
 away this ugly thing; but the Idea of God’s Infinite Per¬ 
 fection annihilates the boyish dream. Suppose I am the 
 blackest of sinners, that as Cain I slew my brother, as 
 Iscariot I betrayed him—and such a brother,—or as a 
 New-England kidnapper I sold him to be a slave,—and 
 blackened with such a sin I come to die,—still I am the 
 child of God, of the Infinite God ; He foresaw the conse¬ 
 quences of my faculties, of the freedom He gave me, of the 
 circumstances which girt me round, and do you think He 
 knows not how to bring me back, that He has not other 
 circumstances in store to waken other faculties and lead 
 me home, compensating my variable hate with His own 
 Constant Love ! 
 
 “ Come, then, expressive silence, muse His praise.” 
 
 3 J 3 3 j 
 
 3 3 3 , 
 
 3 3 3 3 3 
 
 3 3 3 ® 
 
 > 3 3 3 3 3 * 
 
 THE END. 
 
 ) 
 
 ) 
 
 ) 
 
 > 
 
 > 
 
 J 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 JOHN CIIILDS AND SON, PRINTERS. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 \