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 Abel's 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 universe of hell as a sweet morsel under His tongue! Which, I say, 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 himself; and the men who have taught these horrid and odious doctrines, I cannot say they have not been faithful. But I must say that as I hate atheism, so I hate this other doctrine, which represents religion as a torment, 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

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 exploiterer 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,

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 doctrines 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 everlasting 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, perfectly powerful, perfectly wise, perfectly just and loving, and perfectly holy too! Then how beautiful is the Universe! 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 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 structure, 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 continually on the animal appetites at every step, the race getting fairer, wiser, juster, more affectionate, more faithful unto justice, love, and all their laws; look in you, and study the instinctive emotions of your own 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,

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 wall,

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 the 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 Theology, 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