In alluding to some of the novel opinions and theories in science and philosophy, which have gained a little popularity of late both in England and America, though their place of origin must be sought elsewhere, it has not been my wish to provoke controversy. Opinions may be freely discussed without causing offence; I have never referred to the individuals or sects who entertain and defend them. Some of these opinions, I am well aware, are held by many persons who unite with them a lively and steadfast faith, a devotional spirit, and a religious life; but they have been stumbling-blocks to others, for whom alone I have endeavoured to surmount or remove them. The discussion of them has sometimes led me farther into the territory of the natural sciences than it was perhaps prudent for one to venture who has only a general acquaintance with these subjects, and has never made them objects of special pursuit. But in these days, when knowledge is so widely dif fused that the latest theories and discoveries in science are familiarly discussed in the newspapers, the bearing of these theories upon the religious belief of the multitude cannot be safely neglected. I have no fears of any conflict between the truths of real science and those either of natural or revealed religion. The voice of nature, when rightly interpreted, never contradicts itself, and the truth that is fully compre

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hended is always sufficient for its own defence. But when sciolism is almost universal, speculations which usurp the name and garb of science may often give a rude shock to the convictions of a large class who are not well instructed enough to be able to separate hypotheses from established facts, and who can be dazzled by the fluent use of scientific phraseology. Such speculations are easily exposed in their true character even by those whose studies have not gone. beyond the limit which every educated person at the present day is supposed to have reached.

The business of a lecturer upon the Evidences is to reason, and not to preach. I have endeavoured to show, that the fundamental doctrines of religion rest upon the same basis which supports all science, and that they cannot be denied without rejecting also the familiar truths which we adopt almost unconsciously,

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upon which we depend for the conduct of life and the regulation of our ordinary concerns. The applica

tion of these doctrines to the heart and the life is the business of the professed teachers of Christianity, into whose province I have not felt competent to intrude. Some may think that I have been too cautious in this respect, and have placed too little stress upon sentiment, and too much upon argument, as if religion were less an affair of the heart than of the intellect. this objection it may be answered, that belief is one

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thing, and the regulation of conduct according to that belief is another. A cold and passive assent to the doctrines of Christianity is not enough to constitute a religious life; but no one will maintain that a Christian life is compatible with a denial of those.doctrines, or with indifference upon the question whether they are true or false. Emotion which is not directed towards any object, nor excited by the contemplation of any truth, may spring from a source as low as mere physical stimulus; it is then animal rather than spiritual in its nature. Religious emotions must rest upon religious ideas and convictions, or they will be as transitory as they are vehement. The heart and the intellect must move together and in concert, for nothing can be more barren than their separate action, or more pitiable than a conflict between them. If there are any whose enjoyment of spiritual truth is never darkened or perplexed by doubts and questionings, they are those who have first acquired clear and distinct conceptions of what that truth is, and have then satisfied themselves by study and experience that it is founded upon a rock. It is doing no honor to our religious faith to place it upon the footing of a necessary prejudice.

But as this subject is considered at length in some of the following Lectures, there is no occasion to pursue it here. I wished only to express my earnest

dissent from the doctrine which is now not infrequently avowed, even from the pulpit, that any study of the Evidences of Religion is unprofitable and vain. On the contrary, I believe that there has seldom been a time when such study has been more necessary than it is at the present day. Religious fanaticism has given. way to religious indifference; the strife of sects with each other has somewhat cooled, but the strife of opinions upon all the great subjects that are interesting to humanity is more active and universal than ever. The thirst for innovation has greatly increased, and all restraint upon speculation in science, philosophy, politics, and social economy is taken away. In France and Germany, at this hour, we see the mournful consequences of this chaotic state of public opinion, this upheaval of the foundations of belief. The best minds of the former country are even now engaged in an attempt to undo their own work, and to resettle the belief of the people upon those subjects in relation to which they had formerly conspired to shake it. The philosophical party in the French Institute, after being at open war with the clergy for a century, are now zealously coöperating with them in the endeavour to teach the fundamental truths of religion to the deluded and exasperated people. If society in our own country is not to experience a similar crisis, it must be through the efforts of the

educated laity, working in concert with the clergy, to erect a barrier against the licentious and infidel speculations which are pouring in upon us from Europe like a flood. The time seems to have arrived for a more practical and immediate verification than the world has ever yet witnessed of the great truth, that the civilization which is not based upon Christianity is big with the elements of its own destruction.

CAMBRIDGE, August 12, 1849.