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 confession 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 confession of our actual creed. Each intentional act comes from a sentiment or idea. It is well to see what 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 atheists, 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 practical 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 Providence 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

God, to think true, to do right, to feel kind, and to be holy; but he affirms that he owes this natural and absolute obligation to Nature; either to all Nature, represented 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 practical 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 "Nature" that 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-faithful; and, on the contrary, affirms speculative atheism as his practical principle and motive of life, and then endeavours to live up to it, or live down to it. That is

one form.

Second, the other is Disguised 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 disguised 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 admiration, 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 speculative consequences, he must needs die outright. I may say the same of complete, real practical atheism. There is no complete and real practical atheism; for I think nobody could ever be perfectly consistent with real speculative atheism, and live as if he felt absolutely no obligation 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

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 atheism; and though no man is a complete practical atheist, yet there are many with whom practical atheism preponderates 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 halfacts 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 nobody can ever empty himself wholly of the consciousness of God;—or next, because the man is not fully self-conscious 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.

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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 selfdenial, and feeling more strongly than the majority of men the absolute obligation they were under to be faithful to every limb of their body and every faculty of their spirit. These were only formal atheists, not real atheists. 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

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 '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 material 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 consciousness 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 Compromise 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