ANCIENT AND MODERN VIEWS OF NATURE. 7 



embodying higher views of the Unseen. Yet 

 religious ideas change slowly, and it is much to 

 be regretted when men cling to an out-grown 

 deity, whose morality is not above but below 

 their own standard and whose actions are unjust, 

 absurd, or physically impossible, in the sense of 

 being opposed to the known laws of nature. 



Compare with the old-world teachings which 

 we have just been briefly examining, our modern 

 views of Nature and God, which, though they 

 must always remain very imperfect, are yet far in 

 advance of those of the ancients. Heaven and 

 Hell, as localised regions, have vanished from 

 the physical universe. Not that the ideas them- 

 selves to which these abstract terms are applied, 

 have lost an atom of their significance ; but as 

 they pertain to other states of existence, they 

 do not fall within the sphere to which our 

 modern scientific methods of observation limit 

 themselves, and hence we can no longer point to 

 any region of the physical universe as the 

 locality of Heaven or Hell. Besides, a single 

 Heaven or Hell is no longer either scientifically 

 or morally credible ; and, although generally 

 taught by Christians, yet the few remarks which 

 have been handed down to us as Christ's own 



