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?

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

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

the eternal damnation of the wicked: "Our people would not stand it, sir," was the reply. But the point which more immediately concerns us is whether the old religion of terror, or its modified and softened modern version, was, or is such a source of solace and inward joy as is commonly assumed. Any one who has had the privilege of knowing intimately one of those rare and beautiful souls in whom a single-hearted piety seems spontaneous, would be slow to deny that such solace may exist. The meek and chastened spirits do occasionally know that peace of God which passeth all understanding. But it is equally certain that that peace is subject to painful interruptions, and that almost in exact proportion with the growth of a tender and watchful conscience does the liability to such eclipses increase. It is the presumptuous, not the truly devout, who dwell always in a complacent conviction of their acceptance and favour with God. All spiritual doctors abound in warnings against the two opposite dangers, on the one hand, of over-confidence, self-righteousness, Pharisaism; on the other, of despair and hopeless despondency of ever pleasing God. The proud content of the Pharisee can never be put to the credit of religion, as it is the temper which is most of all condemned by true piety. "Humility, and modesty of judgment and of hope, are very good in

struments to procure mercy and a fair reception at the day of our death; but presumption or bold opinion serves no end of God or man, and is always imprudent, even fatal, and of all things in the world is its own greatest enemy; for the more any man presumes the greater reason he has to fear." Any solace,

therefore, of this kind, derived from religion, must be repudiated and struck off the account as illegitimate and in a manner fraudulent-a deadly spiritual sin seizing the reward of perfected saintliness. It is the anxious and careworn penitent whom we have to consider, those who, when they have done all that they can, still regard themselves as unprofitable servants. Theologians prescribe elaborate remedies against despair as a "temptation and a horrid sin;" but it is a sin to which the humble, the meek, and the truly devout are exposed, and not the wicked and worldly. How often it has been pushed to the destruction of reason, resulting in religious madness, the statistics of insanity are there to show. Even when it stops short of this fearful consummation, and appears in the milder form of desponding anxiety, and fear lest the sinner has lost favour in the sight of God, those moments of coldness and tediousness of spirit form a heavy deduction from the hours of peace and happiness enjoyed between, as every book of devo"Holy Dying," ch. v. s. 6.