EDITOR'S TABLE. 



369 



horrors, killed and devoured children, and 

 gave themselves up to frightful excesses. 

 Scarcely any evils were attributed to the 

 Jews in the middle ages by Christian fti- 

 natics which had not been before attributed 

 to the Christians by heathen superstition." 



It would be well if our theologians 

 would remember these things when 

 tempted to deal out their m'iledictions 

 upon scientific men as propagators of 

 atheism. For the history of their own 

 faith attests that religious ideas are a 

 growth, and that they pass from lower 

 states to higher unfoldings through 

 processes of inevitable suffering. It 

 was undoubtedly a great step of prog- 

 ress from polytheism to monotheism ; 

 as it was cartainly a most painful tran- 

 sition to lose the idea of a social hier- 

 archy of human or superhuman im- 

 mortals constantly mixed up with hu- 

 man affairs and the working of Nature, 

 and to substitute the idea of a solitary 

 divine personality, related to mankind 

 chiefly through a special theological 

 scheme. But this was neither the final 

 step in the advancement of the human 

 mind toward the highest conception of 

 the Deity, nor the last experience of 

 disquiet and grief at sundering the ties 

 of old religious associations. But if 

 this be a great normal process in the 

 development of the religious feeling 

 and aspiration of humanity, why should 

 the Christians of to-day adopt the 

 bigoted tactics of heathenism, first ap- 

 plied to themselves, to use against those 

 who would still further ennoble and 

 purify the ideal of the Divinity ? It 

 cannot be rationally questioned that 

 the world has come to another impor- 

 tant stage in this line of its progres- 

 sion. The knowledge of the universe, 

 its action, its harmony, its unity, its 

 boundlessness and grandeur, is com- 

 paratively a recent thing ; and is it to 

 be for a moment supposed that so vast 

 a revolution as this is to be without 

 effect upon our conceptions of its Di- 

 vine control? Is it rational to expect 

 that the man of developed intellect, 



VOL. XI. 24 



whose life is spent in the all-absorbing 

 study of that mighty and ever-expand- 

 ing system of truth that is embodied 

 in the method of Nature, will form 

 the same idea of God as the ignorant 

 blockhead who knows and cares noth- 

 ing for these things, who is incapable 

 of reflection or insight, and who pas- 

 sively accepts the narrow notions upon 

 this subject that other people put into 

 his head ? As regards the Divine gov- 

 ernment of the world, two such con- 

 trasted minds can hardly have anything 

 in common. "As a man think eth, so is 

 he ; " and as a man is, so will he think. 

 If he is ignorant and stupid, his con- 

 templation of divine things will reflect 

 his own low limitations. He will cling 

 to a grovehng anthropomorphism and 

 conceive of the Deity as a man like 

 himself, only greater and more powerful, 

 and as chiefly interested in the things 

 that he is interested in. If he delights 

 in the pious excitement of "revivals," 

 he will think of the Almighty as the 

 patron of camp-meetings, and as watch- 

 ing from on high with special solicitude 

 the doings of Moody and Sankey in 

 Boston. It is superfluous to say that 

 men who look upon the universe as 

 science has disclosed it cannot much 

 sympathize with this view of the Deity 

 and all that it implies. The profound 

 student of science will rise to a more 

 spiritualized and abstract ideal of the 

 Divine nature, or will be so oppressed 

 with a consciousness of the Infinity as 

 to reverently refrain from all attempts 

 to grasp, and formulate, and limit the 

 nature of that which is " past finding 

 out," which is unspeakable and unthink- 

 able. Eeligious feeling may be awak- 

 ened in both those minds ; but its in- 

 spirations and its accompaniments will 

 be as wide asunder as the poles. Our 

 religious teachers ought in these days 

 to have liberality enough to recognize 

 this serious fact, and remembering that 

 human nature is religiously progressive, 

 as well as progressive in its other capa- 

 cities, should abstain from copying the 



