536 THE TRUE RELIGION. 



human race. Those hopes and illusions served as the 

 scaffolding, and may now safely be removed. There 

 will always be enthusiasts for virtue as there are 

 now, men who adorn and purify their souls before the 

 mirror of their conscience, and who strive to attain an 

 ideal excellence in their actions and their thoughts. 

 If from such men as these the hope of immortality is 

 taken, will their natures be transformed ? Will they 

 who are almost angels turn straightway into beasts ? 

 Will the sober become drunkards ? Will the chaste 

 become sensual ? Will the honest become fraudulent ? 

 Will the industrious become idle ? Will the righteous 

 love that which they have learnt to loathe ? Will they 

 who have won by hard struggles the sober happiness 

 of virtue return to the miseries of vice by which few 

 men have not at one time or another been enthralled ? 

 No ; they will pass through some hours of affliction ; 

 they will bear another illusion to the grave ; not the 

 first that they have buried, not the first they have 

 bewailed. And then, no longer able to hope for them- 

 selves, they will hope for the future of the human 

 race : unable to believe in an eared God who listens 

 to human supplications they will coin the gold of their 

 hearts into useful actions instead of burning it as 

 incense before an imaginary throne. We do not 

 wish to extirpate religion from the life of man ; we 

 wish him to have a religion which will harmonise 

 with his intellect, and which inquiry will strengthen, 

 not destroy. We wish, in fact, to give him a 

 religion, for now there are many who have none. We 

 teach that there is a God, but not a God of the 

 anthropoid variety, not a God who is gratified by 

 compliments in prose and verse, and whose attributes 

 can be catalogued by theologians. God is so great 



