82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



openly " substitute Humanity for God," * and refuse the transforming 

 adoration of the heart to any conception which is not level to the 

 bare positive understanding, they also — with all their eloquence and 

 persuasive amiability — " charm " their contemporaries utterly in vain. 

 As modern England will never again become papal and mediaeval, so 

 (it may be safely predicted) modern England will never become athe- 

 ist or positivist. Our countrymen are in too healthy and vigorous a 

 mental condition to impale themselves on either horn of this unconge- 

 nial dilemma. But they may, and it is to be hoped they will, surren- 

 der themselves to the far higher and more scientific teaching of men 

 like Mr. Spencer ; and will learn from them to think out to just and 

 practical conclusions the deeply interesting — and to some minds the 

 quite absorbing — question of religion. 



But then — with all respect be it said — Mr. Spencer must really help 

 us to think further on than he has yet done ; or he will find the Chris- 

 tian clergy (whom he is under temptation to despise) will be before- 

 hand with him. He has most ably " purified " for us our idea of God ; 

 he has pruned away all kinds of anthropomorphic accretions ; he has 

 dressed up and ridiculed afresh the Guy Fawkes crudities of by-gone 

 times, which he apparently " sees no reason should ever be forgot " ; 

 he has reminded the country parsons of a good many scientific facts, 

 which they read, it is true, in every book and review from Monday till 

 Saturday and then so provokingly forget on Sundays ; and he has 

 schooled them into the reflection that a Power present in innumerable 

 worlds hardly needs our flattery, or indeed any kind of service from 

 us at all. But then all this is abundantly done already by the steady 

 reading, from every lectern throughout the land, of those grand old 

 prophets and apostles of the higher religious thought, who perpetually 

 harp upon this same string. " God," they reiterate, " is not a man," 

 that he should lie or repent ; " Bring no more vain oblations " ; " The 

 sacrifices of God are a troubled spirit " ; " Thou thoughtest wickedly 

 that I am such a one as thyself " ; " God dwelleth not in temples made 

 with hands, neither is worshiped with men's hands, as though he 

 needed anything." Nay, the present writer — who probably sits under 

 a great many more sermons in the course of the year than Mr. Spencer 

 does — is firmly persuaded that every curate in the Church of England 

 and every [Nonconformist minister are perfectly aware of these great 

 truths and on suitable occasions preach them ; and that what they 

 want to be taught is something beyond all this A B C and all this ne- 

 gation — viz., what are the fundamental conceptions on which they 

 may securely build up, not their philosophical negations, but their 

 popular assertions about religion. For a religion of mere negations is 

 as good as no religion at all. It seems hardly worth while to go down 

 Sunday after Sunday to St. George's Hall, or to any other hall, simply 

 to be told that Heaven has nothing whatever to say to us. We can 

 * " Positivist Prayer-book." 



