RELIGIOUS RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 345 



omnipresent deity, there is a gradual fading of his alleged human at- 

 tributes : dissolution begins to affect the supreme personality in re- 

 spect of ascribed form and nature. 



Already, as we have seen, this process has in the more advanced 

 societies, and especially among their higher members, gone to the ex- 

 tent of merging all minor supernatural powers in one supernatural 

 power ; and already this one supernatural power has, by what Mr. 

 Fiske aptly calls deanthropomorphization, lost the grosser attributes 

 of humanity. If things hereafter are to follow the same general course 

 as heretofore, we must infer that this dropping of human attributes 

 will continue. Let us ask what positive changes are hence to be ex- 

 pected. 



Two factors must unite in producing them. There is the develop- 

 ment of those higher sentiments which no longer tolerate the ascrip- 

 tion of inferior sentiments to a divinity ; and there is the intellectual 

 development which causes dissatisfaction with the crude interpreta- 

 tions previously accepted. Of course, in pointing out the effects of 

 these factors, I must name some which are familiar ; but it is needful 

 to glance at these along with others. 



The cruelty of a Feejeean god, who, represented as devouring the 

 souls of the dead, may be supposed to inflict torture during the pro- 

 cess, is small compared with the cruelty of a god who condemns men 

 to tortures which are eternal ; and the ascription of this cruelty, though 

 habitual in ecclesiastical formulas, occasionally occurring in sermons, 

 and still sometimes pictorially illustrated, is becoming so intolerable 

 to the better-natured that, while some theologians distinctly deny it, 

 others quietly drop it out of their teachings. Clearly, this change 

 can not cease until the beliefs in hell and damnation disappear. Dis- 

 appearance of them will be aided by an increasing repugnance to in- 

 justice. The visiting on Adam's descendants, through hundreds of 

 generations, dreadful penalties for a small transgression which they 

 did not commit ; the damning of all men who do not avail themselves 

 of an alleged mode of obtaining forgiveness, which most men have 

 never heard of ; and the effecting a reconciliation by sacrifice of one 

 who was perfectly innocent are modes of action which, ascribed to a 

 human ruler, would call forth expressions of abhorrence ; and the 

 ascription of them to the Ultimate Cause of things, even now felt to 

 be full of difficulties, must become impossible. So, too, must die out 

 the belief that a Power present in innumerable worlds throughout in- 

 finite space, and who during millions of years of the earth's earlier 

 existence needed no honoring by its inhabitants, should be seized with 

 a craving for praise, and, having created mankind, should be angry 

 with them if they do not perpetually tell him how great he is. Men 

 will by-and-by refuse to imply a trait of character which is the reverse 

 of worshipful. 



