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creation is that ineradicable feeling of dependence and reliance upon some 
higher power, a consciousness of bondage from which the very name of 
‘ religion 9 was derived.”* 
It is in this ce true Light, which lighteth every man which 
cometh into the world,” that the Zulu and every other man to 
whom the Gospel comes beholds the glorious revelation of Divi- 
nityin “the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.'” 
It is this original endowment of our nature, confirmed and en- 
larged by the Divine Incarnation, which constitutes what Mr. 
Muller calls the religious faculty, but which, after all, he denies 
to man. He denies it because he supposes it to be unnecessary. 
But is it so ? We have the faculty of sensation *and of reason; 
by the one, we are able to certify ourselves of physical pheno- 
mena; and, by the other, of certain relations between the 
several objects of sense and of supersensuous qualities which 
underlie them. But in religion I, a person, am seeking com- 
munion with a spiritual and infinite person, without which 
communion my religious need cannot be met. Now, although 
my reason may conduct me, as conclusively as it conducted 
Kant, to the necessity of such an existence, yet it cannot 
conduct me a step further. My reason will not enable me to 
come into His presence, to lay hold on His strength, and plead 
with Him ; but this direct intercourse is what I need, and it 
is evident that this is what has been enjoyed by men from the 
beginning. Enoch walked with God, Abraham was His friend, 
and millions of intelligent, sober-minded men in the present 
day are able to testify that the exercise of this faculty, which 
is in harmony with reason, which uses all its deductions, but 
goes far beyond it, is the most profound and thorough exer- 
cise of their consciousness day by day. Without ability to go 
beyond reason and to attain an individual consciousness of the 
Divine presence, and of our real relations to Him, we cannot 
conceive of religion, which is essentially individual. Worship 
is offered by a congregation, by a community; but in this 
form it is the worship of a collective unity, and in all cases is 
the worship of individuals, although many are assembled in 
one place. The failure in remembering this has, we think, 
led to the primary error in this history of the growth of reli- 
gion. Religion can only grow by the more perfect communion 
of the individual, and by an increase in the number of those 
who possess it. 
But, while we require this natural power of direct and 
individual personal contact with God, this by no means super- 
sedes the necessity of outward revelation, any more than 
reason removes the necessity of sensation. But let us from 
* Chips, vol. i. p. 238. 
