410 LESSONS FKOM NATUEE. [CHAP. XIII. 



truths of their impressiveness than associating them with the 

 prosaic and vulgarizing sounds and sights and smells coming 

 from crowded children.&quot; 



It is here contended, then, that Mr. Mackintosh is both 

 A positive right and wrong : right, in advocating a common 

 compromise, g^ical teaching ; wrong, in wishing to exclude 

 theology. What many persons believe would be far better 

 than a mere colourless hazy system of Bible-reading and 

 vague insinuation of nebulous doctrines would be a clear, 

 sharp, distinct, and positive inculcation of natural religion 

 apart from any teaching of revealed religion. The inculca 

 tion, that is, of a belief in a Personal and Holy God, moral 

 responsibility, and rewards and punishments in an immortal 

 state of future individual existence. 



Such teaching, and a manual framed to convey it, some 

 think might give satisfaction to all but the small sect of 

 Antitheists. All Christian bodies, all Unitarians and Deists 

 even, might acquiesce in such teaching, since the foundation 

 for all would here be laid, while the rights of none would be en 

 croached on. The special superstructure of each might then 

 well be added by the purely religious teaching which each 

 would bring to bear upon the children under their influence. 



Ethics would come to repose on a secure basis, for although 

 moral precepts do not depend upon the will of God, yet 

 apart from Him they can have no stable existence. 



But it is not only the teaching of children that has to 

 Need of a be- be considered. In the face of the prosperity of 

 rewardaand 8 vice and the success of evil designs, which so often 

 meats, dazzle the eyes of those under temptation, what 

 rational motive can be presented to the will of even adults, 

 to induce them to repress a wrong desire, which he who feels 

 it thinks he may safely indulge, apart from the existence of a 

 good God and a future life ? All men are, of course, more or 

 less influenced by kind-hearted and generous feelings, and a 

 sensible pleasure in different degrees generally attends the 

 performance of good actions, but by no means always so 

 sometimes they are most painful. 



