60 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



canons of criticism which we apply to other departments of literature. 

 Every theology, no matter how emphatic its assertion of a supernatural 

 source, bears about it the plain marks of its human origin. The con- 

 ceptions of God vary with the zones and closely parallel the grades of 

 culture in which they arise. The commandments called divine become 

 more elevated as the civilization of a people advances. The disciples 

 of a prophet or apostle direct the noble impulses he has implanted in 

 their hearts to broaden his teachings and correct his errors. Contrast 

 the almost human tribal God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with the 

 lofty idea of the Deity entertained by Isaiah. Compare this latter, 

 again, with the universal Father whom Jesus taught his followers to 

 worship. Mark the cumbrous legality and ritualism of the Old Tes- 

 tament and its silence respecting the future life ; how different this 

 from the teaching of Jesus, who exalted the spirit above the letter, 

 valued love more than sacrifice, and assured his hearers of an immor- 

 tality which made this world but a temporary scene of trial and pro- 

 bation ! Note how the high-minded Paul saw nothing reprehensible 

 in slavery, and compare that with the humanity of an age which gives 

 even dumb animals rights against their owners. The evolution of 

 thought in general is fully exemplified by thought in theology, not- 

 withstanding its assertion of a sacred fixity. John Wesley, sensible 

 man that he was, said that, if he were to give up his faith in witch- 

 craft, he would give up the Bible. Yet his followers have dropped 

 the witchcraft, and kept the Bible. 



No study of human history would be valuable or just which did 

 not recognize as a prime fact the profound religious instincts of our 

 race. The awe inspired by the sublimity of the starry heavens, and 

 the terrible and resistless forces of Nature those of the volcano, the 

 tempest, the pestilence so mysterious in its origin and spread, and the 

 famines so devastating in the childhood of races all these, not less 

 than the kindly succession of the seasons, and the enjoyments of 

 health and home, have suggested an infinite Power, the immanent 

 sustaining spirit of universal life. The baffled hopes and aspirations 

 of the soul, the anguish of bereaved affection, the enigmas and trage- 

 dies of life, have joined together to implant a faith in another life 

 which shall be complement and compensation for this. As a record 

 of man's perception of his helplessness in the combat with Nature, as 

 a pathetic registration of his hope, fear, and remorse, the religious 

 sentiment is entitled to our profound respect. Every sentiment, how- 

 ever, of the human heart, while compelling our respect or reverence 

 in itself, awakens some less lofty feeling by its expression in institu- 

 tions. The Sanhedrims and Councils of the churches, which have 

 arisen by virtue of the religious sentiments of our race, do not appear 

 to have been lifted above the passions and partialities of our Congresses 

 and Parliaments. The inner heart of humility and reverence in relig- 

 ion we highly respect, but the churches not so highly. The inevitable 



