I hardly know why I should insist upon this position with any special strength of statement. It is the simple and acknowledged truth, I think, in our religious philosophy. Certainly it is in every other. All knowledge, all science, rests upon an original basis in human nature. All art, all perception and culture of the beautiful, is referred to an original sense of beauty in the human soul. When we speak of the most remarkable instances of human development; when we speak of Shakspeare, we are thinking of the wonder of his genius more than of his culture, or means of culture. And even if we were, with the utilitarian philosophers, not all dead yet, — to refer all moral and religious sentiments to sensation connected with the love of happiness, low as the basis would be compared with the grand primal intuitions of humanity, we should still point to the original constitution of human nature. I am not denying, by any means, the importance of culture, of the upbuilding: of this I shall come to speak. I am not denying that the capacity would be created in vain, unless it were filled with something; but I am insisting, first, upon this point,-the capacity, the foundation.

But now what, more precisely, is this foundation? It is intuition. It is an intuitive sense of moral obligation. It is an intuition of right, of justice, of goodness, and the beauty of goodness. It is also an intuitive idea of God, and comes so near to an absolute proof of his existence, that all mankind. have, in one form or another, received it. And, again, the doctrine of immortality comes, if not from a positive intuition, yet from a notable instinct of humanity; proved to be such, says Guizot, by its having existed among all people, from the rudest to the most civilized. Human degradation may sometimes appear to lend but poor countenance to that faith. "Such poor creatures as men are, many of them at least, can they be immortal?" Some one, reporting of Coleridge's conversation, says that "he talked one day of the sense of immortality in man, and of its universality, which, in his opinion, caused it to partake of the nature of instinct in animals. The only time I ever saw Lord Byron, he added, he pointed to a man in a state of brutal intoxication, and asked

if I thought that a proof of an immortal nature. 'Your inquiry, my lord, is,' I answered."-"And so it was," adds the reporter; "for it was the natural instinct shrinking with abhorrence from that degradation, that apparent death of the soul." These, then, are the foundations of religion; of natural religion, of all religion, laid and imbedded, I believe, in the human soul by the hand that made it.

I wish now to single out from this grand, original category of faith, one point as the subject of some further argument upon the foundations of religion. I mean the belief in God, and especially in him as a righteous Being, a good Being.

Why it is, that our nature, our whole mind, demands this Being as the object of its faith and adoration; why every thing within us" cries out for God, for the living God,"— I will not undertake to say or explain. It may be because a boundless capacity and reach of thought naturally demand a boundless object, that a love such as we are capable of, naturally soars to an infinitude of love, and cannot stop short of it. It is not of this I am sure a mere desire of infinite favor and protection. There is a deeper element, a diviner passion, in our being, that seeks its great Original. And certain it is, that, if that central Light be extinguished, all in us is dark and desolate. Strike out moral intuition from our religion, and the corner-stone is gone. Strike away the doctrine of immortality, and its loftiest pinnacle falls. But strike at the filial faith in God, - break that down, and every thing tumbles into ruins.

It cannot be without the profoundest concern, therefore, that every thoughtful man must look into those questions concerning the Supreme Nature, which our minds naturally raise, and especially under the guidance of modern science. It is not the "germ" doctrine of Professor Darwin that troubles me. But when we think of the extent of the universe; when we carry our views beyond our own sidereal system, so inconceivably vast, and embrace thousands of other systems, of perhaps equal extent; and when we reflect that all this may be but one section of the unbounded creation, —

what are we to think of the Being, who made, who sustains, and who governs, the infinite whole? Our minds sink overwhelmed in that boundless abysm of existence; and we feel as if we knew, and could know, nothing concerning it,— nothing but that it is. "I am," seems to be all that it can tell us. Jonathan Edwards argues, that if any, the least event, thought, or motion in the universe were unknown to God, or uncontrolled by him, all would go to ruin. But what is that omnipotence, what that omniscience, which comprehends every event, every mind, every prayer, every thought, every act, every animalcule, and every animalcular motion, that takes. place, at every moment, in the universe? Can any intelligence conceivable by us, can any moral attribute conceivable by us, belong to such a Nature? Is not such a Being, as has been contended, strictly and utterly "unknowable," "unthinkable," by us? If utterly unknowable, if in every respect so, then we are orphans; we are, to all spiritual intents and purposes, atheists," without God and without hope."

But I do not yield to such a conclusion. The argument for it is grounded on the essential imperfection of all our ideas of intelligence and goodness. These we must not ascribe to God; therefore, it is said, we can ascribe nothing to him but bare existence; nothing, i.e., of an intellectual or moral nature. But I make here a broad, and what seems to me, a very material distinction. Our mental processes, embracing succession, reasoning, comparison, steps of thought, and necessarily implying limitation, are one thing; quite another is our intuition of truth and right, which does not involve any reasoning nor imply any limitation. Intuition, grand in every way, is grandest of all in this. It is the archetype of the Divinity stamped on the soul. It is the symbol of eternal truth and right. It is the image of God.

If it were not so; did the Infinite Intuition of the true and right, differ essentially from ours; did the Infinite Intelligence differ entirely from what we understand by intelligence; did the Infinite Goodness, or what we call such, differ altogether from all we understand by goodness; might what we worship as infinite Goodness, be Infinite Malignity for aught we know ;

then there would be nothing left for us to revere or love; and all inward, true religion would be struck to death by such fatal scepticism.

The question, broadly and abstractly stated, is this: Does a thing's being incomprehensible make it altogether unintelligible? On the contrary, I say that the very correlative of incomprehensibility is a certain degree of intelligibleness. We do not say, that of which we know nothing is incomprehensible, but that of which we know something. And it would seem to be an obvious distinction, that the nature of an object is one thing, and the extent of it another: but this distinction some late reasoners, if I understand them, do not seem to recognize. We do not know how far a thing extends; and, if it extends beyond the grasp of our conception, we do not know what it is, in that condition of inconceivable extension.

Is this true? Matter spreads to an inconceivable extent. Does it follow that it loses its nature in that extension? Are we not sure, on the contrary, that it continues the same? Mind rises, even in some human beings, certainly it may in superior beings, — to a point that we cannot comprehend. Do we not, therefore, know what its nature is? Does intelligence, or does goodness, by extension, by infinite extension, cease to be intelligence or goodness? Numbers are capable of indefinite, of infinite multiplication. The infinite multiplication we cannot comprehend. Does it follow that we know nothing of the nature of numbers? Nay, do we not know, that the nature of numbers, though infinitely multiplied, must continue the same? As to comprehending, we do not comprehend any thing perfectly; and, if comprehending is the condition of knowing, we do not know any thing. It has been said that we cannot distinctly comprehend the number 20. Certain it is, that, as we go on counting from one, our ideas grow indistinct at every step; and we can no more comprehend a million of units than we can comprehend an infinity of them. Nay, not so much perhaps; for we have a distinct idea of infinitude, but we have not, of a million of units. But is it not a strange thing for a philosopher to say,

You cannot comprehend a million of numbers, therefore you do not know what the nature of numbers is; or, when carried to an infinite multiplication, you do not know what their nature is in that infinite multiplication?

It strikes at the validity of all knowledge to say, that we can have no just idea of that, in its nature, which we do not comprehend in its entirety. The astronomer understands something of the systems of the stars, though he does not understand their whole extent. I stand before the spectacle of nature: a soul in me meets and perceives an Intelligence and a Goodness manifest in the objects around me, manifested as plainly as if they were endowed with speech, and uttered the thoughts that are breathing and shining through them. And am I to be told, that, because they are the expression of an Infinite Mind, I know nothing of what they mean, or of what that mind reveals of itself through them? Does the phrase, "God in nature," blot out all life and light from nature? As well might I be told that I understand nothing of what a human being says to me, of what his meaning is when he speaks to me; for his meaning derives its character from an Infinite Mind, as truly as the meaning of nature does. And surely, if I could go on studying mind and matter for ages, or for ever, I cannot help believing that they would express the same things. And yet if I could go on till I comprehended all created matter and all created mind, came nearest to the Infinite, comprehended the universe, in fact; yet, according to these reasonings, I should still know nothing of God, but as some unknown force. Who can yield to such reasonings? Alas! for the scientific tendency that is taking that direction; that, merged in material objects, sees not the light shining through them! No: mind going out to an Infinite Mind, brings back to us some intelligible conceptions, however inadequate. From that boundless deep of Being -the illimitable extension of our own being — come some solemn intimations of its nature. But now we are told, that from that infinite rebound comes-nothing! Pardon me, my brethren, if I dwell upon this subject with something of indignant earnestness. It is as vital to me as my existence.