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 selfishness, the motive, and material desire the rule of conduct 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 conflicting 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 another 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 nation's will," says the Atheist; "no God above the peoples of the earth. Let us bite and devour one another."

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 vindicate 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-the Christian way of the Anglo-Saxon. VOL. XI.-Theism, &c.

4

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. I 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 without 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 obligation to speak true, to do right, to feel kind, and to be holy. But there are many depraved things done which 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 wickedness, 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, denying 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

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, heroism 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 religious element so strong in us, but the moral and affectional are so powerful, the intellectual so mighty, that human nature must stop a great ways this side of complete 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.

III.

OF THE POPULAR THEOLOGY OF CHRISTENDOM, 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 has 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

not change, and as the religious 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 outgrowing 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 religion, and takes a new one. Sometimes a nation does so. This is called a Conversion of the individual, a Reformation 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 commerce, 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 Christianity. 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 Christianity, and then to Protestant Christianity. Shall mankind stop at Paganism? at Papal Christianity? at Protestant