386 What is Religion ? [J u ^y> 
goodness, conducing to an end to be achieved in far on and 
outreaching £eons of time. In the bowels of the earth, in 
geological eras long past, were stored those deposits which 
have been and are the great engines of civilisation, stored 
in times of seeming desolation, blazing volcanoes, devas- 
tating storms, and their sweeping floods. Was the order 
which resulted from these seemingly devastating rums 
accident ? Were the ores buried in the earth accidents an- 
ticipating the advent of man and his necessities ? . Shall we 
not rather say that herein is the evidence of a design so far 
reaching as to order the why and the when,, guiding and 
maintaining all in the forms of rigid law, unerring in results, 
provident in its exigency, anticipating the necessities ot 
denizens of Earth not then in being ? A better name can 
be found for this providence than Monism and its shallow 
deductions affords. Where is the mind which can measuie 
the grand scheme of the Universe ? Where the mind which 
shall define the limits of this providence ? The further we 
probe Nature’s characteristics, the further we can fathom 
the science and methods of Nature, the furthei we lecede 
from accidents as a cause, and find in our researches the 
aCts of a great and inscrutable will, which fashioned events 
and anticipated all the necessities which must evolve when 
the principle of intelligent life was established on Earth. 
Nature is the great mother ; she dips into matter, and com- 
pletes its subjugation by compelling it so to aCt as to satisfy 
her demands : this is shown in the aptness of phenomenal 
display, where every want is supplied, every gap profusely 
filled, yet without wasteful expenditure ; there is nutriment 
for the creature and seed for the reproduction of the vege- 
table protoplasm, the support of animal life. Ihus we find 
systems within systems, each to each linked by a bond ot 
order wherein there is neither laxity nor loss: all are ab- 
sorbed in the endless routine of existence, each playing its 
allotted part, all leading up to and ending in its complement 
—Man. , r 
C. N. appears to confound Religion with systems ot 
Theologies or creeds. In all he suggests there is no pre- 
sentment of humanitarian realities which tend to elevate 
the race; hut this is impossible with a philosophy which 
commences in self and consolidates all in self, even cieation 
— i.e., in the Ego. . . 
We find a long dissertation on the wantmgs apparent in 
theologies ; Catholicity appears to be the btte noiv. Gibbon 
has done this work better than C. N. can ever hope to do : 
a citation of the celebrated XVI. and XVII. chapters, in 
