whom we can influence, and so to rescue them from eternal perdition.

That, I think, is a fair statement of the condition and prospects of man under the Christian scheme of revealed religion as professed by the Church of England, and more or less by the various bodies of orthodox Nonconformists, as well as by the Roman Catholic Church.

Then take the case of the believer in God as revealed in His works, considered for the moment apart from the question of his prospects in a future state of existence, as to which I shall be prepared to contend, by-and-by, that the believer in natural religion is in a happier position than his orthodox brother. He beholds with sorrow the great amount of misery and vice in the world, but on careful observation and study he is convinced that a large proportion of this evil is remediable -that it proceeds from ignorance and neglect of the laws (unwritten, indeed, but not the less revealed to the careful observer) which God has ordained for the government of the world. From the large provision made for the prevalence of good in the world he is convinced of the benevolence of the Creator. He is satisfied that, on the whole, good is destined ultimately to prevail; that the very freedom of man, although often the cause of failure and evil, is also a necessary element of progress; and that there are no assignable limits to this progress-no limits to the possible dimi

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nution of vice and misery, or to the possible increase of well-being and well-doing, if man but take the means which God has placed at his disposal to accomplish this blessed consummation. Strong in this persuasion, he shares the faith of the Laureate

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill.

But he feels that it is not by indulging the degrading belief of the utter depravity and helplessness of human nature, and by looking elsewhere than to our own exertions for improvement, that any good is to be done. He feels that, whether for the individual man or for society, all depends on their own efforts that God helps them that help themselves, and that it depends on themselves only, each exerting himself in the limited province allotted to him, to effect a regeneration of the society to which they respectively belong, of the world. In this faith he resolves to walk, confident that when man shall have done his part the blessing of God will not be wanting.

His high endeavours are an inward light

That keeps the path before him always bright.

WORDSWORTH.

Surely there is no absence of elevation in views like these; nor need this scheme of creation and of man's mission on earth shrink from comparison with the established system of the day.* What higher religious

* I propose in a subsequent letter to inquire into the truth of the

duty to God can man perform than that of employing all his faculties in seeking to know and do His will? what more acceptable service can he render to his Creator than that of helping on and cheering and, so far as lies in his power, blessing his fellow-man?

It must by no means therefore be supposed that religion is at an end because good and enlightened men in the present age are unable to recognise in the attributes of the exclusive national God of the Jews the God whom they venerate; nor need it be doubted that they may have as lively a faith in the existence and overruling providence of God as any of the patriarchs of old, though no longer in a form contradictory to reason and experience. God has not left Himself without witness in the world now, any more than in the earlier periods of its history. We are able to form larger and more elevated views of the wisdom, power, and goodness displayed in the creation and government of the world than were the patriarchs of old; but surely our belief may be as strong, and there can be no more difficulty in educating the masses of mankind to believe in a just and benevolent Deity, the Father of His people, than was experienced in leading the Jews to believe in an exclusive national God, such as the God pourtrayed in the early Scriptures. Religion cannot be supposed less fitted to satisfy the spiritual needs of intelligent

scheme of a Fall and Redemption, which is at the root of all the orthodox systems of revealed religion.

men because it springs from a belief in a just and wise and benevolent Governor of the universe.

The unworthy ideas of God and His government of the universe generated in the Hebrew mind, and thence passing into the Christian world, must indeed, through the influence of a higher cultivation, be replaced by ideas more appropriate to a great and wise and good Being. But the religious sentiment, which is ineradicable, will not be the less fitted to raise and purify the heart and to strengthen the moral nature, when sustained by more enlightened views of the attributes of the Creator. The religious feelings not less than the moral are capable of cultivation; they may be refined and elevated or vulgarised and degraded according to the notions which are entertained of the Supreme Being and of man's relations to Him; and seeing how much the conduct of men is influenced by their religious belief, it is of the highest moment that religion should be founded on just and elevated views of God and His government of the world. As Miss Cobbe eloquently observes- A purer theology freeing God's character from miserable blots, ever-advancing science adding each hour a fresh verse to the endless psalm, glorifying the wisdom and good

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Einen Gott erkennen, sich die würdigsten Begriffe von ihm zu machen suchen, auf diese würdigsten Begriffe bei allen unsern Handlungen und Gedanken Rücksicht nehmen, ist der vollständigste Inbegriff aller natürlichen Religion.'-LESSING.

ness displayed in His creation; these have given us the new doctrine which is destined to affect beneficently every department of human life. The moment men receive it thoroughly, the idea of a perfect life must thenceforth be the idea of a life developing every faculty of the mind, every power of the body, every holy affection of the heart of man.' (Dawning Lights, p. 148.)

There is further this advantage attending a theology founded on a careful observation of the works of God, that when once it shall have taken possession of the public mind all will thenceforward be in harmony with Nature. We shall no longer dread, as now, every step in the advance of scientific knowledge; no discoveries in geology, astronomy, or criticism can then do aught but strengthen the grounds of religious faith. Religion and philosophy will thenceforward go hand in hand; the business of philosophy being to search out and determine the principles which are to regulate our conduct, and that of religion to sanction and enforce them in practical life.

It is of the utmost moment that our duties should be associated with and made to rest upon a religion that is not liable to be discredited, as must be the case with a religious system founded on immutable dogmas derived from supposed traditional facts of a supernatural character, like that which prevails in modern Europe. The dogmas losing, as in time they are