balanced by rational thought, disconnected from the moral sense and deed, the monstrosity of the dervishes' dance and the revival convulsion has been called religion. Nevertheless, without sentiment, religious thought may tend to dry dogmas, and moral deed be cold and colorless. The sentiment is that which imparts the life-giving, fructifying, mellowing atmosphere to religion. And it is difficult to see how this sentiment should not arise, though in very crude form perhaps, as soon as the first mental perception of relationship to some Power conceived to be supreme had dawned; and as difficult, nay, more difficult, to see why the sentiment should not continue as a necessary adjunct of all full-sided religious thought, under whatever degree of rational enlightenment and culture. Just look at the actual conditions a moment. Here we are, in organic, vital, present relationship with the Eternal Power from which all. things have proceeded. That Power is the very breath of our life. Our consciousness, our affections, our aspirations, are phases of its existence. Our sense of duty and right is the behest of its august presence. Our dispositions to benevolence and generosity are the very channels which its love has made in our being at our welcoming gesture. Yet this Power, so nigh to us, so living in us and this is what Science says is that same Power which has existed from all eternity, creating the worlds and all that is in them, and which shapes. the perfect crystal of the snowflake, clothes itself

as beauty in the ripened leaf and in the first flower of spring and in myriads of forms, large and small, all around us on earth, and studs the heavens with gems of stars and planets. Can any human being actually think this thought about the Infinite and Eternal Power without some uprising of inward sentiment? without some emotion both of awe and of obligation? Even Science itself, for a moment, must hush its debates, cease its researches, and bow in reverence before the grandeur of its own conception.

Nor does legitimate Science make any opposition to sentiment either in religion or elsewhere. Sentiment forms a part of the phenomena which make the field of its researches. It is a more difficult field than that which is offered in physical nature; and Science does not claim that it can bring to the region of emotion the same tests which it would apply in the chemical laboratory or in botanic analysis. It only claims that the scientific method is to be used, and not the dogmatic; that is, the method of accurate research into and observation of facts, and then of their classification, and the discovery, if possible, of their law of relation. This method is now applied to the study of history, of language, and literatures; and there is no reason why it should not be applied to all the phenomena of religion. For science is simply systematized knowledge. But if, on account of the reconditeness of the field, Science is as yet unable to give a systematic explanation of all the phenom

ena of the religious sentiment, that failure does not invalidate the reality or the useful function of the sentiment. The blood circulated in the human frame precisely as now before Harvey discovered the law of its circulation. So religion and the religious sentiment existed for long ages before modern science appeared. Science has scattered or is scattering the crude explanations of their origin which have come down from uncivilized and uncritical times. By and by it may clearly show the natural motive and law of their development, and demonstrate their rational validity. Yet that validity will not depend on this discovery and declaration of Science. Science discovers a law of existence, but does not create it. The validity of religion is established in the constitution of human nature. It is Professor Tyndall who writes: "There are many things appertaining to man, over and above his understanding, whose respective rights are quite as strong as those of the understanding itself." "There are such things woven into the texture of man as the feeling of awe, reverence, wonder; the love of the beautiful, physical, and moral, in nature, poetry, and art. There is that deep-set feeling which has incorporated itself into the religions of the world. To yield this sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the problem of problems at the present hour." And, if I recall aright, it is Herbert Spencer who says, still more pointedly, in the line of the thought I have just been uttering, "The religious sentiment, like

the desire for knowledge, is a phase in the energy

of nature."

And when we have thus fixed the religious sentiment as correlated with the innermost essence of Nature's being, or, in other words, with that Reality and Power Eternal which is behind all phenomena, material or mental, as their source and sustenance, we need entertain no anxious fear lest this faculty of human nature, which has been so dominant in the past, is now to suffer extinction. Let us not believe that, under our rationalistic views of religion, the function of religious emotion must cease, that its place is vacated to be filled by some other faculty. The immediate objects of religious sentiment may change from age to age, but the sentiment does not thereby cease as a factor in human action.

I have spoken a few pages back of the religious sentiment as necessarily including moral sentiment when rightly cultivated, and without this combination there can be no genuine religion. And this necessity has been abundantly proclaimed and emphasized by all the great seers and prophets of religion in all faiths,—not always by theologians and priests, but by the world's galaxy of immortal spiritual teachers. But the fact that the strange deformity is not infrequently witnessed of a character in which religious sentiment is developed strongly and into great demonstrativeness of expression, and at the same time conscience in the same person is so weak as not to forbid most fla

grant immoralities,— this abnormal fact has led not a few liberal thinkers to question whether religious sentiment has any real and permanent value in itself. Let me, therefore, call your attention somewhat more specially to this point.

Why, it is asked, make a distinction between the religious sentiment and the moral sentiment, since we admit, in accordance with the teachings. of all the greatest religious prophets, that there can be no true religion without morality? Or, if psychologically there be a distinction, is there anything in the religious sentiment when it is developed by itself apart from morality that is worthy of preservation? What is religion apart from ethics but a mass of bigotry and superstition? Why not, then, reduce religion to what we admit is its best evidence and fruit, practical virtue, and, saying nothing of the religious sentiment, aim directly at that on which there is such general agreement?

Now there is a truth implied in these critical questions for which hospitable provision must be made in the institutions and practical efforts of religion. But, at the same time, the questions do not cover the whole of human nature, nor can the ethical aim alone permanently satisfy. I cannot believe that a correct philosophy either of human nature or of religious history will identify religion wholly with morality, and, much less, confound the religious sentiment with the moral sentiment. It is true that religion in its highest and purest