149 
possessed of an independent will, were incapable of: such 
regulation ; law, as they saw it in the rhythmic dances of 
the stars , ” could never be law to them. From the way in 
which the theory is stated, and from the testimonies quoted — 
which do not carry the conclusion — ages of settled national 
life must have passed before the idea of law was excogitated. 
But with law embodied in their mode of life during many 
preceding generations, and never long absent from their 
consciousness, the late discovery of stellar order cannot have 
been the source of the idea of law. 
In the concluding lecture Mr. Muller pleads for the futile, 
inoperative, and degrading systems of religion and philo- 
sophy, as if they were as pleasing to the Creator as the imper- 
fect lispings of the babe are to the human father (p. 369). 
But the resemblance here supposed does not exist in man. 
He has not been left to make for himself a Divine name, nor 
fco discover for Himself the Divine presence and will. And 
further, when such degradation of the idea of Godhead has 
taken place as permits a man to look for an all-sufficient 
helper and friend in a fire which he has himself kindled, 
and to pray to it, such prayer is no more addressed to the 
Heavenly Father than similar petitions to a beast or a stone 
are addressed to a human father. We do not presume to pass 
judgment on the ignorant heathen, or to define the precise 
relation in which they stand to the Supreme King and His 
government. We rest in the assurance that “ the Judge of all 
the earth will do right/' and “ that many shall come from the 
east and west, and shall sit down in the kingdom of heaven." 
But it must at the same time be remembered, that in the 
measure in which man loses the true idea of God, or forgets 
Him, he also loses the idea of virtue and the most powerful 
motives to its practice ; because all virtue is merely a fulfil- 
ment of the obligations arising out of the relations in which 
we stand to our Creator and fellow-creatures. In ignorance 
of these relations, and more especially with erroneous and 
degraded conceptions of them, there can be no just sense of 
duty, and the true end of man is neither seen nor realised. 
All such persons as, under the perverting influence of ignorance 1 
and idolatry, live to themselves are incapable of the favour 
of the Supreme Ruler. The prayers also of a man who has 
fallen from God and from righteousness are not likely to be 
such as the Lord can answer, nor will they ever be such as a 
man who knows the Lord would present. Unless, therefore, 
we merge every Divine attribute in a weak and thoughtless 
fatherhood, we can see no hope of special favour to the 
worshippers of idols, which are nothing in the world. 
