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tives and factories has driven from the earth the Pierian Muses, daughters of Olympian Jove, our regret is not wholly without alleviation, since we are unable to detect any similar decline of intelligence, virtue, affection, refinement, or any of the amenities of a Christian civilization. Those who say that nature is still full of poetry, merely utter words to which they attach no definite meaning. Nature is indeed much the same as of old; but there is no poetry in nature, but in man; and man is ceasing to be poetic. We are not sure that the change is wholly for the worse. Beautiful and impressive objects and heroic actions are not poetry, but the materials of which poetry is made; and they are not the less real-perhaps not the less appreciated when we have neither the desire nor the genius to fashion them into song. We have said that real poetry never represents any thing entirely as it is, but fashions all things by its own images, and colors them with its own dyes; and shall we be told that nothing is lovely or beautiful when seen in its simple reality? Do love, and faith, and truth, and self-denying toil, require adventitious aid to win our admiration? Is there no beauty in the orderly procession of day and night, of the seasons and all they bring forth; in landscapes composed of "woods and corn fields and the abodes of men," in purling streams and water-falls; in flowers and fruitage populous with birds and bees; or in little children playing upon green grass and about the mossy trunks of old trees?-is there no beauty in all these, seen precisely as they are? Is there no beauty to any but the anointed eye of the seer, who casts over all things a "vapory silver veil

not their own?

Our third corollary is that, Religion is decreasing in like manner. We can scarcely even indicate the line of argument proper to sustain this proposition, which nevertheless follows naturally from what has already been said. It is proper, however to explain what we here mean by religion. Upon no other subject, perhaps, do people generally have ideas so indistinct, not to say incorrect. In attempting to define religion, each one sets forth, not what he has ascertained it to be, but what he individually thinks it ought to be; and thus defines with more or less accuracy, not a great fact of human history, but the conception of his own brain. As all nations and peoples are admitted always to have had

some kind of religion, its ultimate essence must be that in which all known systems agree. Points of disagreement, however marked, are only the specific differences, subordinate to that which constitutes the generic unity. Now, all religions concern the relations existing between man and beings of a higher order. We say beings, using the plural number, because all systems acknowledge One Supreme, and a number of secondary existences; and it does not affect the principle in the least whether those subordinate being are called gods, demigods, angels, or archangels. Religion then naturally divides itself into two parts,-the one of which teaches what those relations are, or theology; and the other, what is proper to be done in view of those relations, which is practical religion. The number and complexity of doctrines believed constitute the amount of theology. In like manner, the number of things which it is necessary to do, and the multitude of those that must be left undone, the time, labor, attention and money devoted to securing the favor of the celestial Powers,-comprise the amount of practical religion. Now we hold that both of these are steadily decreasing,-that their decrease has in all ages been a consequence of increased enlightenment. The aim of all religious reforms has been to diminish those amounts. The burden of all prophecy is denial. Joe Smith, the prophet of the Mormons, is the only one that we can recall, whose direct aim was addition; a circumstance that may be regarded as one of the marks of the Beast. the worst times of Hebrew idolatry, no one questioned the divinity of Jehovah or the legitimacy of his worship; but the prophets, certainly among the noblest reformers the world has ever seen,-with a single bold sweep denied all the rest; thus challenging nine-tenths of the religious faith and practice of the age. We think there is no exception to this rule, and that the mission of every reformer has been merely to combat the errors of his time, not to introduce new doctrines. It is this that has made reformers so odious to their generation-that they make war upon what men hold sacred and necessary to salvation. The reformer might be as pure and saintly as he chose, and add indefinitely to the amount of extant religion, and no dog would move a tongue against him; but men will not sit still in peace and see their idols broken before their eyes. We cheerfully

admit that all true reform has been the negation of evils; but that hinders it not a whit from being a denial of what was part of the prevailing religion. Universalists have felt the truth of this so keenly as to be often anxious to deny it; and have manifested an uneasy sensitiveness under the accusation of negative preaching. But this very iconoclasm is the stamp of the mint upon their work. And it may be as well for them to have the sagacity to see this, and the moral courage to admit it. Errors, like thorns and thistles, grow of themselves. And it takes the bold and diligent hand to defy their spines and eradicate them.

The gradual diminution of religion may also be seen by comparing two distant epochs or countries. We should find that it was the grossest forms of idolatry, like those of the Phoenicians and the ancient Mexicans, which made the largest demands upon their votaries; while modern Unitarianism and Universalism claim the least. Between these two extremes there is a gradual series, in which the purity is inversely as the quantity. No man so completely represented the intellect of the present age as Alexander Von Humboldt, and it has often been complained that his Cosmos contains no indications of a Supreme Being, either as recognition or denial. A stranger might be in many of our families in this country, from Monday morning to Saturday night, and leave with the impression that they were atheists, yet admitting that they were good neighbors, and good citizens, and blameless in all the ordinary relations of life.

We presume that very many will dissent from our views on this subject. They will do so generally, however, from disregarding our approximate definition of religion. And in that case the difference will be merely about the meaning of a word. We consider religion to be solely what men think and do in relation to the unseen world. Whatever is limited to this visible universe in which we live, may be good, or may be bad, but it is not religion. Morality is not necessarily religious, nor is religion always moral, although the two are very generally combined in the same system. The stricter sects understand this, and are quite as severe upon mere morality, as upon immorality. If we deal our bread to the hungry to secure the favor of Heaven, the charity has a religious character; but if it is given only from the kindly impulses of our nature, we the while thinking only of alle

viating the suffering of humanity, is has none. As Burns

says,

"It's no' through terror of damnation,

It's just a carnal inclination,”—

and strictly Orthodox divines hold that inasmuch as the motive is not the glory of God, the act partakes of the nature of sin. This is what is meant by the doctrine of total depravity. They hold that the religious or sinful character of the act, is determined by the motive; and as man in his natural state, before his heart is touched by divine grace, acts only from natural human emotions, his actions, however disinterested and beneficent, are all sinful. Now, among the many tendencies of the age, we think we see very distinctly a growing recognition of the nobleness of humanity, and its natural impulses and longings. God is becoming less, and man is becoming more the object of our solicitude. Nor do we very deeply regret this. Seeing that all are agreed that the Most High is self sufficient, and needs not the slightest favor or service from any, and humanity needs so much, we are not sorry if men devote more time to heal the wounded in body and in soul,-give work to the idle, bread to the hungry and instruction to the ignorant, recall the erring and elevate the standard of virtue and intelligence,-and less time to religious observance and prayer.

S. R.

ART. XXI.

Providence in History.

ALL sound philosophy is predicated of the idea of a first and eternal Cause. So in history; without a constant Providence, all is confusion-a mere succession of events without beginning and without a purpose. To read aright the story of man's life, we must recognize in every event the agency of that power by whom all things were created and are sustained. We express the primal law of the uni

verse, by the words, "Will of God." Nature, with her innumerable forms and operations, would be a meaningless spectacle without an Infinite Creator, who, in his wisdom, power, and goodness, is always immanent. In like manner the achievements of men and nations are just as truly the ordination of Providence. Thus viewed, history is indeed "philosophy teaching by example." Nay more, it is a manifestation, a revelation of God to man. To deny this, to assert that it is but the record of man's caprices and crimes, is nothing more nor less than atheism.

The task of explaining the teachings of history is one which, though often attempted, has seldom been accomplished. Most historians have contented themselves with narrating the transactions of men and nations as if they were the result of chance, or the limited calculation of fallible man; comparatively few have sought amid confused and ever changing events for that law by which they were determined, and can alone be explained. It is a trite remark, that, "every effect must have a cause." It is not as often recognized that it must also have an end. Yet the two ideas are inseparable. If we commence the study of history with a profound conviction that God has ever been present in the world, we shall have no difficulty in understanding that the creation and destruction of empires, and the vicissitudes of races and nations, were planned by Infinite wisdom, to accomplish an infinite purpose; so that, however perplexing to short-sighted man may be the record of the world's history, faith, more potent than philosophy, illumines its blood-stained pages, revealing God, the Alpha and Omega of all.

In the infancy of the race, the fact of God's presence and government was universally acknowledged. In those primeval days,

"When shepherds gathered their flocks,
By the blue Arcadian streams,"

the belief in the constant guidance of Heaven was unquestioned. It was reserved for later times and colder hearts to evolve a philosophy which excludes God from his works, and makes man an orphan. Among the nations of antiquity this truth was maintained upon all occasions. No enterprise of "great pith and moment" was commenced without

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