thropic, and religious movement, but the preachers in the Churches do little directly either to diffuse new truths, or to kindle a deeper sentiment of piety, or philanthropy. The Protestant Church counts this its chief function-to appease the wrath of God and to administer the Scriptures to men, not to promote piety and morality. Take the whole Christian Church at this day-where is the vigour, the energy, the faith in God, the love for man, which marked the lives of those persons who built churches with their lives? Taken as a whole, the clergy of Christendom oppose the foremost science, justice, philanthropy, and piety of the age. The ecclesiastical institutions seem to bear the same relation to mankind now as the ecclesiastical institutions of the Hebrews and Heathens two thousand years ago. Every year the Science of the scholar separates him further and further from the Theology of the Churches. The once united Church is rent into three. The infallibility of the Roman Church-who believes it? the Pope, the superior Catholic clergy? The Infallibility of the Bible,-its divine origin, its miraculous inspiration,-do the Scholars of Christendom believe that in defiance of Mathematics, Physics, History, and Psychology? They leave it to the clergy. The Trinity is shaken; men lose their faith in the efficacy of water-baptism, and other artificial sacraments, to save the souls of men; miracles disappear from the belief of all but the clergy. Do they believe them? The Catholic doubts the medieval miracles of his own Church; it is in vain that the Virgin Mary reappears in Switzerland and France; that Saint Januarius annually liquifies his blood; that statues weep: the stomachs of reapers refuse such bread. It avails nothing to threaten scientific doubters with eternal hell. Superior talent forsakes the Church, even in Catholic countries, there are few clergymen of genius, or even great talent. In Protestant Germany theological genius teaches in the college, not in the pulpit; and with new science destroys the medieval opinions it was once set to defend. Will the spirit of the human race come back and reanimate the dry bones of dead Theology? When the mummies of Egypt shall worship again their half-forgotten gods-Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis; when mankind goes. back to the other sciences of half-savage life the Theology of that period may be welcomed again. Not till then. Is Religion to die out of the consciousness of man! Be are lieve it not. Even the protests against "Christianity oftenest made by men full of the religious spirit. Many of the "Unbelievers" of this age are eminent for their religion; atheists are often made such by circumstances. Even M. Comte must have a New Supreme-Nouveau Grand Etre,and recommends daily prayer to his composite and progressive deity! There was never a time when Christendom was so pious-in love of God; so philanthropic-in love of man; so moral-in obedience to the law of God; so intellectual— knowing it so well; so rich-possessing such power over the material world. Yet through lack of a true Idea of God, from want of institutions to teach and apply the Absolute Religion-there is not that conscious and total religious activity which is indispensable for the healthy and harmonious development of mankind. What need there is of a new religious life! The three great public forces of the leading nations of Christendom,Business, Politics, and the Press, excite a great intellectual activity. Christendom was never so thoughtful as now. Shall this great movement of mind be unreligious, without consciousness of God? It will not be controlled by the Theology of the Christian Church. But it is not a wicked age. What philanthropies are there new-born in our time? Catholic France is rich in the literature of charity, shaming the haughtiness of the Anglo-Saxon Church. Yet within not many years at what great cost has England set free almost a million men "owned" as slaves! Nay, Russian Nicholas emancipates his serfs. Socialists seek to abolish poverty, and all the curses it brings on the body and the spirit of man. Wise men begin to see that the majority of criminals are the victims of society more than its foes, and seek to abolish the causes of crime; what pains are taken with the poor, the crazy, the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb; nay, with a fool! Great men look at the condition of woman-and generoushearted women. rise up to emancipate their sex. The Churches are busy with their Theology and their ritual, and cannot attend much to these great humane movements; they must appease the "wrath of God," or baptize men's bodies with water and their minds with wind. Still the work goes on, but without a corresponding consciousness of God, and connection with the religious emotions. No wonder Christendom seems tending to anarchy. But it is only the anarchy which comes of the breaking up of darkness. There must be a better form of Religion. It must be free, and welcome the highest, the proudest, and the widest thought. Its organization must not depend on the State; it must ask no force to bring men to meeting, to control a man's opinions, to tell him on what day he shall worship, when he shall pray, what he shall believe, what he shall disbelieve, or what he shall denounce. The Christian world has something to learn, at this day, even from the Atheist; for he asks entire Freedom for human nature,-freedom to think, freedom to will, freedom to love, freedom to worship if he may, not to worship if he will not. And if the Christian Church had granted this freedom there would have been no atheism. If Theology had not severed itself from Science, Science would have adorned the Church with its magnificent beauty. If the Christian Church had not separated itself from the world's life there would be no need of anti-slavery societies, temperance societies, education societies, and all the thousand other forms of philanthropic action. A new religious life can beautify all these movements into one. There is one great truth which can do it: that God is not finite, as all previous forms of religion have taught, but is Infinite in His Power, in His Wisdom, in His Justice, in His Holiness, and in His Love. It is for earnest men of this age to protest against the evils of the Christian Church, as Luther against the Catholic Church, as Paul against the Heathen, as Jesus against the Hebrew Church. This can be done only by a Piety deeper, a Philanthropy wider, and a Theology profounder than the Church has ever known; by a life which, like that of Luther, Paul, Jesus, puts the vulgar life of the Churches all to shame. The new Church must gather to its bosom all the truth, the righteousness, and beauty of the old world, and add other excellence new got from God. Piety must be applied to all daily life, to politics, to literature, to all business: it must be the creed which a man repeats as he delivers goods over his counter, repeats with his hands, which he works into everything that he manufactures. That is a Piety already on its way to success, and sure to triumph. There are evils which demand a religious hand to redress them. The slave is to be freed, the State and Society to be reorganized; woman is to be elevated to her natural place; political corruption to be buried in its grave. Pauperism is to end, war to cease, and the insane lust of our times for gold and pleasure is to be tamed and corrected. This can be done only by a deep religious life in the heart of the people. All great civilizations begin with God. It is a sad thing to look at the noble and large-minded men who in this century have become disgusted with the Popular Theology, and so have turned off from all Conscious Religion. In a better age they would have been leaders of the world's piety. It is for men who have sought to cut loose from every false tradition, to worship the Infinite Father and Infinite Mother! They may scold, and are then the Church termagant, worth nothing but their criticism. They may toil to remove these evils, their life making a new Church, and then they are the Church beneficent; their influence will go into the world's life, and hasten the development of mankind. How much does all Christendom need a new Form of Religion, to reconcile the understanding, to bring the conscience, and the heart, and the soul, to the great work of life! Then if men are faithful, when eighteen hundred other years have passed by, they will have produced an influence in the world's history like that of the great Christian apostle, who went to the Gentiles so poor and so obscure that no man knows of his whereabouts, or his whence, or his whither. Now, as of old, "God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty," and the true to confound the false. There is no reason to fear. The Infinite God is perfect Cause and perfect Providence; He made the universe from a perfect motive, of perfect materials, for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect means thereto. Shall He fail of his intentions? Man marches forth to fresh triumphs in Religion as in Philosophy and Art. What is gained once is gained for all time, and for eternity. Hebraism, Heathenism, Christianism are places where Man halted in his march towards the Promised Land, encampments on his pilgrimage. He rests awhile; then God says to him, "Long enough hast thou compassed this Mountain; turn and take thy journey forward. Lo! the Land of Promise is still In the anarchy of this age are we taught to before thee." feel, "That man's heart is a holy thing, And Nature, through a world of death, |