an indication of the moral judgments of God, as the instincts of animals, the processes of vegetable life, and the structure of the heavens are of his being and his power. In both cases, we reason from the thing that is created and finite to the self-existent and infinite Cause.

But before entering upon the main subject, which I have here sketched out, I would ask your attention, for the remainder of this Lecture, to a preliminary inquiry into the nature and tendencies of the skepticism of our own day. This will place in a clearer light the reasons for entering into the discussion at all, and for adopting a particular kind of argument or line of reasoning as most appropriate for the times. Every age has its peculiar habits of thought, its favorite studies, and a liking for one class of reasonings and speculations rather than another. It has, consequently, not only its appropriate advantages, but its peculiar temptations and dangers. Nowhere is this more evident than in its religious faith and practice. Infidelity has its Protean forms, and religious belief, as it exists in the great majority of minds, its several points of weakness or exposure, and its propensity to lapse either into blind fanaticism or chilling indifference. Bigotry is the vice of one age, and the careless neutrality which simulates Christian toleration is the fault of another. Now the substance disappears under the form, or is buried under a load of ritual observances, from which the spirit has long since departed; and then the reaction from this extreme tends to destroy both form and substance together. Skepticism, also, appears at one time as the hardened advocate of recklessness and vice, throwing off at once every cover and veil of licentious speculation and practice, and assumes at another the garb of a refined philosophy, and the sentiments, if not the exercise, of an austere and Stoical morality. Natural religion needs to be guarded at all points; it is menaced alike by the insidious speculations of Hume, the blasphemous dogmatism of D'Holbach, the sneers of Voltaire, or the sentimental professions of Rousseau. To what dangers is it now specially exposed, or what opinions are generally prevalent in the community which tend to impair its credibility or to lessen its influence?

The first that I shall mention is the common notion, that as religious faith is natural to man, and is more an affair of the heart than of the intellect, we are drawn towards it by an irresistible attraction, a native impulse, which needs not the aid of argument, but is rather chilled and weakened by any process of reasoning; so that all study of the evidences of religion is unnecessary, if not injurious. In conformity with this opinion, we are told that religion is an indestructible sentiment of the human soul, which may assume different forms, or clothe itself in various creeds, but is in truth independent of these forms and creeds, for these are constantly changing, while the sentiment itself is immutable and eternal. To seek for its origin, to ask a reason for it, to attempt to justify it, is to call upon man to account for his original. instincts. No explanation can be given of them, except that they are a part of the primitive constitution of the soul. The clearest and most eloquent exposition of this doctrine may be found in Benjamin Constant's noted work upon Religion.

"Society, language, and religion," he says, "are inherent in man; only their forms change. We may ask for the cause of these modifications; we may attempt to discover how it is that in society man submits to this or that government; or that in religion he should hold one practice or doctrine rather than another; or why a certain language should have a peculiar affinity to another language. But to attempt to mount up higher than this is a chimerical undertaking, and a sure means of failing to arrive at any truth. To assign to religion, to the love of society, or to the faculty of language, any other cause than the nature of man, is to deceive ourselves by our own choice. Man is not religious because he is timid; he is religious because he is man. He is not sociable because he is weak, but because the love of society is essential to his constitution. To ask why he is religious, or why he seeks society, is to ask a reason for his physical structure, and for that which constitutes his being.”*

To this statement of the strength and indestructibility of the

* De la Religion, I. 19, 20.

religious sentiment I have nothing to object; but I would call your attention to the relative importance which is here attributed to this sentiment, and to the ideas, opinions, or belief which excite it, or through which it is manifested. An emotion, of whatever sort, is called forth by some object, either of the senses, the imagination, or the intellect; feeling is a state of mind consequent upon the reception of some idea. Constant himself admits, that the religious sentiment cannot do without such conceptions, cannot exist without them; but he affirms that these are changeable and transitory, while the feeling is always the same, immutable and eternal. He calls these "the forms," while the emotion is considered as the thing essential, or "the substance." What matters it, then, if the forms change, while the substance remains? Why concern ourselves about the evidences of religion, which relate only to the preference of one form over another, while we are always sure of the substance, which neither prejudice nor ignorance can root out of the human mind, and which is religion itself?

I answer, first, because the interests of truth require it. It is little for me to be conscious of lofty aspirations or devout sentiment, unless assured of the reality of the objects aspired to, and of the actual existence of the Being towards whom the sentiment is directed. To show that the sentiment is indestructible is only to prove that religion is possible, or perhaps inevitable; but not that it is real. The lowest idolater, when he throws himself before the wheels to be crushed by the chariot of his god, shows a strength and fervor of religious feeling which the Christian martyrs did no more than equal. Is it a matter of indifference, then, whether we worship Brahma or Jehovah, so that we worship at all? Religion is a generic term, which includes the most degrading forms of superstition, as well as the purest and most spiritual conceptions of Him who created the heavens and the earth. The question is, not whether some religion be not necessary to man, but whether the religion which the enlightened theist professes be true or false. I invert the terms, then, which are used by Benjamin Constant to express the comparative im

portance of the two elements of religion. It is the sentiment which is the form, for its strength varies in different individuals according to the degree of natural sensibility with which they are endowed, and of the culture which this has received by meditation or exercise; it is the opinion, or belief, which is the sub

stance.

Still further, so far from this emotion or feeling being all that is essential in religious faith or belief, or even coextensive with it, properly speaking, it is no belief at all, and it varies by a wholly different standard from that which measures the degree of faith. Sentiment is the atmosphere in which the mind acts, not the product of its activity; it is the accompaniment, but not the fruit, of meditation. A Hindoo devotee, who fulfils his vow to pass years in ecstatic contemplation of the perfections of his god, and a Newton equally absorbed in the attempt to solve a scientific problem, are instances respectively of the lowest abuse and the loftiest exercise of which the human mind is capable. The excellence of any emotion is measured, not by its intensity, but by its appropriateness to the occasion which calls its forth. A child's delight in gaudy colors or an unmeaning jingle of sounds is as keen as a cultivated person's enjoyment of fine painting or exquisite music. The sentiment itself is blind; it is the reason or the judgment that furnishes the proper objects on which it is expended, and regulates its force according to their comparative value. If excited by that which is intrinsically low and mean, if directed towards merely fanciful conceptions or an unfounded belief, the finest emotion is wasted, and that which should be the ornament becomes the disgrace of human nature. Persons of lively sensibilities and a poetical temperament may revel in the enjoyment of devotional enthusiasm ; but if this be not founded on clear and well-defined notions respecting the subjects of their faith, it is at best but a sort of religious intoxication. And in proportion to the height of the excitement, and the unsubstantial character of its basis, will be the danger of a reaction. A fever heat is soon followed by a chill, the revulsion being from one extreme to the other; when the unnatural

fervor is exhausted, it is sure to be succeeded by unnatural coldness.

After all, truth has its paramount claims for consideration in religion as in every thing else; the intellect has its own work to perform, as well as the heart, and an imperative impulse urges us towards the completion of it. Questions are suggested, doubts begin to creep in; and if we have assured ourselves beforehand, that reason can lend no aid in this emergency, that inquiry and argument cannot buttress our weakened faith, there is no refuge left from the blank abyss of skepticism. To say, that reasoning, or the logic-power, as it has been contemptuously called in reference to this subject, can give us no aid in the momentous inquiry respecting our origin, duty, and destiny, that here the intellect must be silenced, and the heart alone be listened to, is to maintain, either that there is no such thing as truth or falsehood in religion, or that the mental faculties in this respect alone are incompetent for their work, and cannot distinguish truth from error. In all the other relations of life, we must act under the guidance of the understanding and to the best of our judgment, after careful inquiry; here alone, where we have more at stake than in all the others combined, we are told that we must trust exclusively to impulse and sentiment. Unhallowed reason must not be permitted to lay the foundations of a temple to the living God.

The doctrine here considered, by representing religious belief only as the constantly changing "form" of religious sentiment, and hence as altogether secondary in importance, leads to the theory of progress or development in religion, as it is called, which exhibits the "form" as steadily improving with the advancement of the human race in culture and refinement. Mankind pass on, in the lapse of generations, from one stage of religious improvement to another, constantly building upon, enlarging, and perfecting the edifice of their faith. Each new creed or form of doctrine is most appropriate and best fitted for the age in which it appears; it is true for the time, but is destined to give way at some future period to a more expanded and spiritual truth.