bewildered, weeping, in unknown tumults; like soft streamings of celestial music to my too exasperated heart, came that Evangel. The Universe is not dead and demoniacal, a charnel-house with spectres; but godlike, and my Father's!"

How little the celestial music soothed the exasperated heart of the care-laden man, his tragic biography is a melancholy witness.

Though perhaps the chief, the yearning for divine sympathy is not the only ground of men's hesitation to follow the guidance of intellect in this matter. The idea still prevails that Christianity is, after all, the best support of morality extant. What system of ethics, it is asked, can compare with the Sermon on the Mount? There are even some who hold that paradise and hell can ill be spared; the one as incentive to good, the other as a deterrent from evil. How can you expect, it is inquired, selfsacrifice, devotion to duty, if man is to die the death of a dog, and to look for no hereafter? It is assumed as obvious to common sense that in that case we shall eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Self-indulgence the most gross, crime the most unscrupulous, are taken for granted to be the natural and spontaneous predispositions of man, if he did not dread having to pay dear for them in the next world. Wickedness and sin are what he naturally

likes, virtue and righteousness what he naturally detests. The pleasures of lying, robbery, impurity, and murder are beyond dispute; they would fill the cup of enjoyment to the brim, could one only get it without fear of after-consequences in the lake of brimstone. Who can be so ignorant of human nature, nay, of his own heart, as to doubt of these all too fascinating temptations and attractions? As it is, even with the fires of Tophet flaming in the distance, men cannot resist their allurements, or prefer

“The lilies and languors of virtue

To the roses and raptures of vice."

Therefore, it is only too certain that a general abrogation of Christianity would be at once followed by a reign of universal licence; and by the lower order of apologists, it is not seldom broadly hinted that that is the desired result. Take away the mingled fear and hope of a future state of rewards and punishments, and what possible check can be imagined to the universal indulgence of unbridled desires?

Without staying to point out that reasoners of this class, whatever their other merits, cannot be complimented on their estimate of human nature, and that they, at least, can with little grace reproach any opponents with degrading man, we have to

remark that the conclusions of the reason, so far as they are adverse to Christianity, are here met not with arguments but with threats, with appeals to the passions of a very powerful kind; and that it can excite no surprise that, on the whole, passion has the advantage in the conflict. We shall try to examine these points with some care, and inquire (1) if religion has really been in the past the solace and consolation it is asserted; (2) whether Christianity is such a stay and support to morality as it is said. to be; and (3) whether a general outbreak of crime and debauchery may be expected as a natural result of the disappearance of the established theology?

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CHAPTER IV.

THE ALLEGED CONSOLATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN

RELIGION.

It is worthy of remark that, in proportion as Christianity has met with intellectual opposition, a progressive tendency has been shown by divines to veil the harsher and more inhuman features of their creed. The older race of theologians, with no fear of criticism before their eyes, spoke out freely; they preached high doctrine, and found an austere pleasure in dwelling on the awful judgments of God. The small number of the saved, the multitude of the damned, the narrowness of the way which leads to life, the breadth of that which leads to destruction, were topics on which they loved to dwell and the congregations to ponder. To a large extent this tone has been dropped, and replaced by one to which it is the direct contrary. Preachers prefer to dwell on the cheerful and bright side of religion-on its glorious promises, on the delights of the Heavenly

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Jerusalem. They certainly speak with much less unction of the "wrath to come; and if they say nothing to impair the belief in God's justice, which leads him to punish sin with endless torments, they enlarge more on his "mercy," and "the things he hath prepared for them that love him." In some cases, religion is chiefly recommended as offering a graceful and pleasing appendix to life, as depriving death of its sting and the grave of its victory, and opening a prospect up to the sunlit heavens, amid clouds and glory and the most sublime scenery that can be imagined.

This change of tone which, as a broad matter of fact, cannot, I apprehend, be denied, has followed on as a wide result of the great humanitarian movement which began towards the middle of the last century. When legislation and manners were equally marked by cruelty; when criminals were tortured to death, and prisoners kept in noisome dungeons reeking with jail fever and swarming with vermin; when popular sports largely consisted in inflicting pain on men and animals-it is no wonder that gloomy and inhuman views of religion passed without challenge, or even with favour. The alteration of feeling, together with its cause, were quaintly expressed by an American divine, who had been reproached by an English visitor for too slight an insistence on