relation to the origin of the universe, we should refer to the source whence it comes, not to the time when it came. Its beginning is not in time but in God, and is now as much as it ever was.

"You should think of the universe as something which is, not as something which was. God did not, strictly speaking, make the world, finish it, and then leave it. He makes it, he constitutes it now. Regard him therefore not, if I may borrow the language of Spinoza, as its 'temporary and transient cause, but as its permanent and indwelling cause;" that is, not as a cause which effects, and then passes off from his works, to remain henceforth in idleness, or to create new worlds; but as a cause which remains in his works, ever producing them, and constituting them by being present in them, their life, being, and substance. Take this view, and you will never trouble yourself with the question whether the world was created six thousand, or six million of years ago."

CHAPTER XXIII.-RESULTS.

This conversation with Mr. Morton threw some light on the great problems with which I had labored, and convinced me that the philosophy I had hitherto cherished was superficial and far from giving a complete and satisfactory account of the actual facts of human nature. I had done great injustice to man in reducing him to five senses and the operations of the understanding. There was more in him than I had seen. There were facts of his nature which could be traced to no empirical origin, transcendental facts, inherent in reason itself, and which it would by no means answer to leave out of the account.

Mr. Morton had assumed man to be naturally religious. Was he not right in this? How else could I account for the existence of religion as a fact of human history? Religion I find everywhere in history. No nation, tribe, or horde, however enlightened, ignorant, or savage, has as yet been discovered without some form of religious worship. Go where you will, you find the priest and the altar, man seeking to keep open some kind of communication with superior

powers.

Nor is this all. Religion is not a mere unproductive fact in our his ory. Of all sentiments, the religious sentiment appears to be the strongest, and to exert the widest and most absolute dominion over the human race. At its bidding

hostile armies lay down their arms, and meet and embrace as brothers; at its voice kings and tyrants tremble on their thrones; the mother offers up her son in sacrifice, and the virgin vows chastity. Singular that a mere accidental fact, having no root in human nature, should be thus powerful, and so sway the passions, interests and affections of mankind!

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No man is entirely free from the workings of this sentiment. Even I myself, in my doubts and unbelief, felt the need of holding intercourse with powers above me; and there were times when I could almost kneel down and pray. poor mother saw her child fall into the river: she rushed in after it, and did all she could to rescue it, but in vain. She saw she could do no more, and that the child must drown. In an agony of despair, she stretched out her hands and exclaimed, "O thou great Unknown, save my child!" Did she not utter the voice of nature? In fact does there not always go with us the sense of the presence of an invisible being to whom we stand in certain undefined relations? When we fancy that we are alone, when solemn silence reigns around us, and all is still, do we not fear and tremble, and start we know not at what? Does it not seem to us that we are not alone, but standing as it were before a dread presence?

Then also there is the sense of insufficiency. I am oppressed with a sense of my insufficiency for myself. I start in life with high hopes and generous aims. I resolve to lead a life of strict virtue; but some how or other I am perpetually failing. I have yielded to temptation, and am expelled from the garden of innocence. For a time I weep, but soon I recover myself, resolve to try again; and again I fail. I see an excellence I cannot reach, approve a good, from which, though I struggle to gain it, I am ever departing. What shall I do? I feel the need of some succoring being to extend me an arm, that though I stumble I may not fall utterly. All of our race, who have attained to any experience, I apprehend, have felt this painful sense of insufficiency, that "it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." Hence the universal demand for spiritual aid, for a communication with the powers above, that we may obtain assistance to wash out our sins, and to enable us to maintain our integrity for the future.

This feeling, I apprehend, lies at the bottom of all worship, and has given rise to all the rites and ceremonies of

religion. From the consciousness of sin, the need of atoning for it, and the need of divine aid in maintaining a holy life, have arisen the various sacrifices of man, animals, fruits, and flowers, which make up so great a part of all the religions of antiquity. Men did not submit to them because priests enjoined them; but because there was a deep want of the soul which demanded them. The form which they assumed, was, perhaps, not always the best, but all defects of this kind belonged to the general defective culture of the epoch in question.

Have not unbelievers ascribed too much to the craft of priests and statesmen? Priests have no doubt made of religion a trade, but they have been able to do this only because religion has had a strong hold on the consciences, or the affections of the people. Nor could they have origi nated religion. A priest is an officer of religion, and therefore must have been posterior to religion. Religion must have existed before it could have had ministers. Statesmen have no doubt found at times in religion a support for despotism, but only by availing themselves of its power over the people. Had not religion already swayed the people, it could have furnished no aid to the despot.

We consider art as natural to man, or springing from a natural want, because we find that man is everywhere an artist. The rude Indian polishes his bow, and paints the prow of his birchen canoe; the Indian maiden decorates her hair with feathers and shells, and the Indian mother binds the wampum around the neck of her child, bearing witness to the same indestructible instinct which shall immortalize a Phidias or a Praxiteles, a Michael Angelo or a Raphael. From the fact that man wars with man, constructs weapons and delights in battle, we infer that the fighting propensity is natural to him. Why not, then, from the fact that he everywhere venerates and adores, erects the altar and inducts the priest, infer that the religious sentiment is natural to him, that he is naturally religious?

But if religion be natural to man, it is useless to war against it. He is religious because he is man. So long then as he remains man he will have some kind of religious wor ship. Can the infidel change his nature? Can man be converted into a different order of being? If not, then let the infidel cease his warfare. He professes to respect nature, let him then respect it in man, and not less when it prompts him to adore, than when it prompts him to build himself a

cabin, clothe his body, or seek truth and goodness. Religion must be as indestructible as man's nature, and let us therefore cease to waste our time in trying to get rid of it.

But man not only seeks to adore; he also seeks to ascertain the true object of adoration. He inquires if there be really any object worthy of adoration, and if so, what and where? This question, Mr. Morton seemed to me to have answered. Reason demands an absolute cause, and this cause we are not, and the external world is not. Then it must be above both us and nature, the cause of its causality and ours. I look into reason and find that it contains the ideas of the finite and infinite. This idea of the infinite is not a secondary idea. I cannot derive it from any other idea. My ordinary experience makes me acquainted only with finite things. But from no imaginable number of finites can I deduce the infinite. I can draw from a thing only what is in it; and as the idea of the finite does not contain the infinite, I cannot deduce the infinite from it. Logically also the idea of the infinite must precede that of the finite. I cannot perceive a thing, as finite, unless I have at the same time. the conception of the infinite from which to distinguish it. my first experience is of finite things, the conception of the infinite must precede experience, and must therefore be a transcendental idea. That is, a conception of the pure reason, of the reason prior to all experience. If then I may trust reason, there must be somewhere the infinite. But I can predicate infinity neither of myself nor of nature. Then back of and above both nature and myself, there must be an infinite reality,-God. The conception of unity, of perfection, would lead me to the same result.

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But may I trust reason? If not, I am in a sad condition. I have nothing but reason with which to show even that reason ought not to be trusted. Why shall I trust it when it declares it is not worthy of trust, rather than when it reveals to me my own existence, nature, and God? If it be not worthy of trust, then I have no ground for believing it when it declares it to be untrustworthy; but if it be worthy of trust at all, as it is one in all its degrees, why may I not trust it in its highest revelations, as well as in its lowest ? But all this is unnecessary. I am not free in this matter. Reason addresses me always in an imperative voice, and its conceptions command my assent. I cannot discredit them

if I would. Moreover, what have I always contended for? I have always extolled reason and condemned religious

people for depressing it. I have condemned them because I have supposed reason to be against them. I have then always admitted the authority of reason. I will do it now. If I do I see not how I can escape from Mr. Morton's conclusions. But, do I wish to escape from these conclusions? Not at all.

CHAPTER XXIV.-SUPERNATURALISM.

"I have been thinking over," said I to Mr. Morton, on meeting him a few days after the conversation I have recorded, "your reasoning in proof of the existence of a God; I have weighed it as carefully as I could, and I confess I am unable for the present to get away from it. But I do not see that you have made any use of inspiration. Your system seems to me only a system of rationalism, perhaps I should say, deism."

We will not dispute about words," he replied. Nevertheless, I hold myself to be a supernaturalist as well as a rationalist, and I seem to myself to have a place for inspiration."

"What do you understand by inspiration, and what do you consider to be its office?"

"Your question is a short one, but it will require a long answer. Let me begin by saying, that men are prejudiced against inspiration, chiefly because they look upon it as an isolated fact, a sort of anomaly in our experience, without any analogy with the general and ordinary operations of the human mind. But this I hold to be incorrect. Inspiration is an unquestionable fact of human experience, and, if I am not much mistaken, is as explicable as any other fact.

"A favorite author with unbelievers, Thomas Paine, somewhere says in his Age of Reason, Whoever is in the habit of looking into himself, must observe that he has two classes of thoughts. We have one class of thoughts which spring up in our minds whenever we will to think of any particular subject; another class, which are involuntary, and come of their own accord. I am accustomed, he says, to treat these uninvited visitors with great respect; for I have learned that from them we obtain the most valuable part of our knowledge. I quote from memory and doubtless do not give his exact words, but I give his thought. Now, if I mistake not, here is a recognition of certain facts which will aid us to a right conception of inspiration.

"You will please to call to mind what I have heretofore said of reason. It is our only source of light. But reason