it is willful blindness; for so subtle is this illusion, so far removed sometimes from the immediate error, that we are conscious of no insincerity, no prepossession of false love. It is impossible, says Coleridge, for the mind to contemplate the same class of evidences for any considerable length of time without forming a judgment in their favor. And how do men determine what class of evidences they will consider? Usually by some obscure or prominent hope that such or such an opinion will be found true. A man is born in a given church. His father, mother, brothers, sisters, and all his playmates attend it. When he grows to manhood, he looks around, not for perfect truth, but for evidences to satisfy his mind with the objects which have long since satisfied his heart. Almost unconsciously to himself, he gives the most cordial welcome to that side of truth. It is wrong to accuse him of insincerity, for he may be perfectly sincere. Still, you often feel, when trying to convince his understanding, that every suggestion must go through a tangled web of prepossessions before it can reach him; every sortie of your logic is exposed to the crossfire of his distrust, which lies in ambush along every entrance to his mind. Then see how that man's conviction is sometimes changed. Perhaps he loves a woman of different belief, who, even if she returns his love, will never be his wife except upon condition of his accepting her faith. With what eagerness he will look for evidences that she is right, and with what joy will he welcome any thing which favors that change upon which he imagines his whole happiness depends! At last he will find what he seeks-a belief corresponding with his love. Or, it may be, a man's social relations become more agreeable to him in a new than in the old church, and from that moment a new window of the soul is opened, while the other begins to close. Understand me, I am not saying that this is true in every case; nor that it is always wrong. There are multitudes in all churches whose pure hearts see God through and beyond the dogma, if not in the dogma. And in any case I am not sure that this same fore-feeling of the heart is not a perversion of nature's method of preserving the continuity of history in the masses who are incapable of independent, fearless thought. But I wish to show that there is something besides mere argument which enters into all these questions of sect and party, and to show how wisely Jesus always insisted upon a heart in love with the absolute and eternal, a pure heart given fully to God, as the condition of all right thought of truth and all right views of duty. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, and with all thy will, and thy neighbor as thyself. Again see how completely our national hopes now depend upon the purity, unselfishness, and heroic love of the people, upon the capacity of looking through all present interests and hopes to the real right. If we fail, it will not be because the issue is obscure, the right and wrong involved in uncertainty, nor because there is great doubt on which side the pure in heart may see God; but it will be because the people are so in love with peace, and ease, and par values and party ties, that they can not and will not see the plain right. Paul describes certain lost souls as men in whom the god of this world had blinded the minds of them that believe not. And I know of none more hopelessly lost than those whose god is hidden by a golden guinea or a bale of cotton. There is no other way, except by this shameful prepossession of the heart,of accounting for the flimsy reasons which men give for desiring to block the wheels of the administration, reasons which they will some time look back upon in astonishment and wonder how they were ever influenced by them. This man says, "My son wasn't promoted when he ought to have been-therefore the rebels are right." Another man says, "There has been mismanagement and corruption-therefore I will vote against the government!" As if one who was dissatisfied with purgatory should deliberately emigrate to hell. This is not reasoning, it is excusing; it is not the forming of opinion, but the fortifying of prejudice; it is not following the guidance of truth, but yielding to the love of ease and comfort, and worldly success. How clear it is that, corresponding with all intellectual life, and parallel with it, there must be an emotional life, each helping and sustaining the other. From beginning to end of our development, there must be this coöperation of intellect and emotion. In all our efforts at moral and religious culture, it should never be forgotten that men must have something to love and engage their emotions as well as something to believe and engage their intellects. It is in vain that you try to tempt a Trinitarian out of his warm emotional home by any ghastly dissections of his Trinity or atonement. They are little more than pictures on the wall; not his substantial home-comforts. And, on the other hand, unless there is some advance of thought corresponding with each arousal of the emotions, the certain result is sentimentalism and cant. It is like stimulating the tendrils of a vine without giving it a trellis to fasten to; its very luxuriance makes it fruitless. God help us to be pure and teachable, and fearless in pursuit of truth, that the truth may make us free indeed. God help us so to love one another as to share a common purpose and to seek a common destiny, that we may find a true and helpful fellowship! God bless to our hearts these Sunday mornings and evenings, this lovely tabernacle, this goodly friendship, our morning songs and vesper hymns, and silent prayers, that this church may be to us not only a school for our thought, but also a home for our souls! "O friends! we need nor rock nor sand, XVII. PERSONAL RELIGION. CHRISTENDOM has tried to import a full religious development into the character from three foreign sources: from Christ, the Bible, and the Church. In one or all of these ways have men tried to persuade themselves that there was some other way of getting religion than by being religioussome other way of getting religious strength than by religious exercise. I am persuaded that Christ never dreamed of any such transfer of righteousness. He never thought of giving his life to men, save as they lived as he lived; nor his truth to them, save as they believed as he believed; nor his peace to them, save as they trusted as he trusted. Does he say, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"? It is only upon condition that they take his yoke upon them, and learn to do as he did; then they should find the rest which he had found. Does he promise to give his life to the world? But there is always one stern condition, "This do, and thou shalt live." Alas! to get Christ's religion is to be Christ-like. And to imitate him in the smallest things is a great deal more laborious than to believe that he was any thing-God or man. It were a rich gift, indeed, could he impute to us, in our weakness, all the religious strength which he had acquired |