62 THE LIGHT OF DAT 



no sense one witli the constitution of the world ; 

 against the idea that the spiritual life is in no sense 

 a possible development of man's natural capabilities, 

 but something superadded from without, — a unique 

 and peculiar kind of life, which was made possible 

 to man by the life and death of Christ, and in no 

 way possible before that event. It is not an evo- 

 lution from man's proper nature ; it comes from the 

 opposite direction, and is external and supplemen- 

 tary. " Christianity," say the Andover doctors, 

 " is a source of knowledge concerning God which is 

 not given by the external universe nor by the con- 

 stitution of man, but only by Christ." Eeligion is 

 still conceived of as a miraculous scheme to remedy 

 some miscarriage or failure in the plan of God's deal- 

 ings with man, a failure whereby his relation to the 

 race was radically changed. ■ It is looked upon as 

 something naturally foreign-to man, something to be 

 ingrafted upon him from without, not related at all 

 to his natural capacity for virtue and goodness ; some- 

 thing which a blameless man may live and die with- 

 out, but which a cut-throat during the last moments 

 of his life upon the scaffold may, by what is called 

 an act of faith and repentance, obtain ! Against 

 such notions I am directing my argument; I am 

 urging that the sentiment of religion is the same in 

 all ages and lands, differing in its outward forms, 

 but not in its inward essence, just as the sentiment 

 of patriotism or of loyalty is the same. How is a 

 reasonable man to favor any scheme that rules out 

 the religion of Plato and Zeno and Seneca and Epic- 



