by religion. What is contained in the most people hold that the grand outlines early creeds, what is held in common by of it are quite unmistakable. Whatever it the Catholic and older Protestant Churches is not, at any rate, they think, it refers to this, as a matter of course, was Chris- a future state, and prescribes rules of life tianity, and for all practical puposes this which may procure us happiness in that was identical with religion. Anything dif- future state; or whatever it is not, it is ferent from this might be a philosophy, certainly an attempt by means of faith to though more probably it was only a cant, enter into mysteries hidden from the reabut it was certainly not a religion, and to son; or whatever it is not, certainly religset it up for Christianity was nothing ion is a belief in a personal Deity with less than impudent hypocrisy. Thus the human qualities. And yet these asserChurch, or rather the greater Churches of tions, which most people cannot hear Christendom, were supposed, even by those questioned without losing their temper, who most bitterly opposed them, to have are so evidently false that we can only the exclusive right of deciding what was understand how they come to be made by religion, and, still more, what was Chris- considering the dazzling influence that a tianity. Nevertheless, those who refuse single form of religion has for many cento submit to ecclesiastical authority upon turies exerted on men's minds. None of theological dogmas have just the same these characteristics are to be found in all reason for having an opinion of their own or in many of the religions of the world; about the nature and definition of religion. many of the religions that have been most Authority is as likely to be mistaken in powerful and most beneficent have known the one case as in the other. In the one nothing of them. There is little reason to case as much as in the other the decisions think that the prophet Isaiah contemplatof the Church were liable to be perverted ed any future state, and therefore little by the extravagant predominance always reason to suppose that he regulated his given in the Church to a professional caste, life with a view to it; and it would be and by the exaggerated respect always rather hard to make out that all religion is paid to tradition, and that a tradition anthropomorphic in the face of the fact from half-barbarous ages. Hence, as that the very foundation of the Jewish resoon as unshackled minds begin to work ligion is laid in the denial of anthropoconstructively upon religious subjects-morphism. But all this has been suffiand that is the ruling characteristic of the ciently urged above. I have endeavoured present age they take up a position to substitute for this idea of essential requite different from that of the infidel; ligion, not some new idea devised by mythey dispute the authority of the Church self, but an idea attained by the ordinary to prescribe the subject of the debate; method of observation and abstraction; they do not so much give new answers to instead of examining only one religion in the old questions as propound new ques- order to find out what religion consists in, tions. They do this not at all from a de- I have looked at many religions of the sire to conceal a heterodoxy which they most diverse kinds, and have tried to are afraid to avow, and just as little abstract their common characteristic. from a weak thraldom to old associations This common characteristic reveals itself which makes it necessary to them still to very easily when this simple method is fancy themselves Christians and religious adopted, and appears still more plainly when in reality they have ceased to be when, as in the last paper, that which is either. They do it because they sin- antithetical to religion is examined. In cerely believe that, in the controversy of religion, then, we find a rule of life foundthe age, Is Christianity true? or, what is ed upon the principle of worship or habitcommonly believed to be the same ques-ual regulated admiration; and this rule of tion, Have we a religion? the defendants, life is opposed to the mechanical, languid, so to speak they are really two- - are and torpid routine of those who occupy not in court, and are represented there by themselves only with the interests of their a single changeling. They believe that own livelihood, or comfort, or prosperity. it matters little what becomes of the dogmatic system which is so keenly controverted, because in any case it is not Chris tianity, and even if it were Christianity it would by no means be identical with relig But now if we are able to shake ourselves free from the inveterate misconception produced both in the minds of Christians and disbelievers by absolutely identifying religion with modern Christian orthodoxy, we find our view of many things Although religion is understood to have modified. In particular, that easy philosbeen much confused by controversies, yet | ophy of history which has become current ion. tianity and even in the ecclesiastical form of Christianity which is independent of the supernatural, we may notice in the recent history of religion much besides this partial decay. We may notice, in of late years through the influence of the newspapers will require to be reconsidered. The doctrine, that religion received in the last century from Voltaire, Hume, and the others, a blow which is proving gradually mortal, that the patient has been steadily fact, a revival not less rapid and steady, a sinking ever since, and that the transient recoveries, the well-meant Socinianisms, deisms, etc., are more and more plainly seen to be in vain, so that the only prospect is of atheism and complete cessation of all religion—all this is seen to be founded simply upon the confusion of religion with orthodoxy, and to be made all the more fatally plausible because almost all the defenders of religion, being clergymen, instead of doing their best to clear up this confusion, are in a manner pledged to perpetuate it. When we look at the same course of events, having the other definition of religion in our minds, it appears to have quite a different tendency. It appears to point, not at a cessation of religion, but at a great growth of natural religion in the sense defined above, i.e., natural religion, including revealed, but no longer dependent on supernatural religion. That incredulity with respect to the supernatural steadily increases is evident; it has extended itself to the classes which formerly delighted in nothing so much as the marvellous. This is not surely because the case against the supernatural has grown stronger; indeed, in some respects it seems to have grown weaker; at least, the darling argument of the old sceptical schools, that we may pronounce à priori all occurrences of the class called supernatural to be impossible, is now given up by scientific men. But it might have been predicted from the first that when the notion of scientific law had been popularized beyond a certain point the popular mind would take the infection of that intolerance of miracle which had always been remarked in the scientific few. To minds on the look-out for regularity in nature exceptions or miracles are annoying; and so the hatred of miracles becomes as much a superstition of the scientific mind as it is a superstition of the poet to attribute personality to inanimate things. There could not but come a time when this habit of thought would become general, and so far as the supernatural enters into any form of religion, it will, when this happens, give rise to scepticism about the religion itself. But inasmuch as religion itself has not necessarily any connection with the supernatural, and inasmuch as there is very much in Chris mighty revival of the spirit of religion, which is bringing us more and more into sympathy with those generations which believed intensely. Only the Church has still retained possession of the vocabulary of belief; the old phrases, so vigorous, natural, and poetic, had fallen into the hands of the professional caste, had been stiffened by too much definition, had been cheapened by too much use, had lost their sweetness through too much controversy; and so the reviving religious spirit has not gone back to them, but has chosen rather to coin new phrases, and the new coinage, seldom so good as the old, has still seemed preferable, because it could not be suspected of having been tampered with or debased. Hence it is often a matter of difficulty to identify the ancient belief when it is re-issued in quite new language, and often by those who passionately repudiate it so long as it is expressed in the ancient formula. Thus at the very moment when men began to dare to call themselves atheists they began to use the language of religious worship towards nature. Poets were inspired with hymns in praise of nature, philosophers began to study nature with a new kind of ardor and devotion; and in course of time through this new worship the old Hebrew sublimity returned to poetry, the old Hebrew indignation at anthropomor phism showed itself in science; and still it was long- so completely was the phraseology of worship preoccupied by the Church - before it was understood that these feelings were really, and not in mere metaphor, worship; long, too, before the object of this worship was perceived to be none other than He who was shipped from the beginning, the ancient God, "our dwelling-place in all generations." About the same time, too, when men began to confess their repugnance to theology, their contempt for a science so unprogressive and so quarrelsome, they began, on the other hand, to imagine the possibility of drawing a rule for hu man life from the new and vast views of the universe that were opening with the progress of science; but still they called theology their enemy, and did not perceive that to aim at such a new synthesis was to aim at reviving theology. Once more it is worth noticing how from the wor Is beginning of the period of denial the word | so far as the revival has gone a new rehumanity has haunted men almost as ligiousness springing up, though we may much as the word nature; and all this expect at the same time that it will diswhile they have pursued Christianity as guise itself under some new name. an enemy upon whose destruction they this then so? and what is the religiouswere bent, refusing to see that the wor- ness that belongs to natural religion? ship of humanity is as truly the revival of specific New-Testament Christianity as the scientific view of the universe is the revival of the austere Jewish theism. Many other examples might be adduced of the silent reappearance of ancient beliefs under a new name, if I had undertaken here to treat the subject fully. In one word, instead of a steady tendency to leave behind the religious views and feelings of the past, a tendency checked by nothing but the tenacity of old associations, we may observe in the age an ever-strengthening determination to retain as much of the religion of the past as can be retained without accepting the supernatural, or submitting to priestly authority. But now among these revivals of old views under new names do we observe any reappearance of that which in the past was called more technically or in a narrow sense religion or religiousness? When we hear those most penetrated with what is called "the modern spirit" say that the only divinity left to man in these days is science, we recognize after a little consideration that a confusion of language has been committed precisely similar to that of the Hindoos when they use the word Brahma, which is said to mean prayer, to describe the Deity approached by prayer, and that science is not the Deity, but the way of approaching the Deity, viz., God in nature, most devoutly recognized in these ages. When they speak of the necessity of bringing the results of science to bear upon society and upon the individual so as to regulate human life, it is easy enough to see the revival of theology. Christianity again is very thinly disguised under the name humanity. But among those possessed with the modern spirit what do we find answering to the religiousness of past times? That religiousness was not a mere rule of action. It was a play of feeling; it was described as a life, as a mode of consciousness which the religious man had to himself, and which partly absorbed and partly supplemented the life he had in common with others. It was attacked as a delusion, but if our view be correct, if the old beliefs are regaining their hold as far as they can do so without accepting the supernatural, we may expect to find What religiousness might be inspired by it I considered before, and I quoted Goethe and Wordsworth as examples of men in whom such religiousness might be observed. The question is now not of exceptional men, but of a path of relig iousness worn smooth and distinct and trodden by numerous feet, of a type become sufficiently common to have received a name to itself. For this we may expect to find if natural religion be the growing influence it is here represented. The word "culture" has made its way among us from Germany mainly through the influence of that very Goethe who has just been referred to. It used to be a shibboleth of his disciples, but it has since rubbed off its exclusive associations, and at the same time taken a deeper root. We speak now of the culture, whether of a nation or an individual, as a kind of collective name for all that belongs to the higher life of either. When the word is used by historians it commonly includes religion. A chapter on the culture of the Greeks or Romans would discuss along with other matters their religious ideas. When we speak of the culture of an acquaintance we think among other things of his views about religion. But what precise relation culture and religion bear to each other is somewhat unsettled in most minds. The men who profess culture commonly speak of religion with a sort of pitying kindness as a thing good in substance but vulgar in form, a thing which they can sympathize with, but only when it is translated into another dialect. Moreover, culture is understood to be a much more comprehensive word than religion, and in fact to refer principally to matters that have nothing to do with religion. It suggests to us art and science sooner than such things as self-sacrifice and charity. Now if we consider a moment we shall find that here still the old confusion haunts us. This again is a misapprehension which comes from the inveterate habit of identifying religion with ecclesiastical Christianity. How unless we make this mistake could we come to think of religion as having nothing to do with art and science? How could we avoid seeing that wherever a society has been strongly religious, its religion has been, I be better to say religion again - treats art and science. Utility by itself, or almost by itself, might create a sort of art, painting of the Dutch kind, useful didactic poetry; it might in like manner create a sort of science, and discover those natural laws which affect most directly human convenience. But art, in the high sense, is the fruit of instinctive loving admiration of natural forms, and science in the main has been created not by those who wanted to invent some new convenience, but by those who were haunted by the sense of law, and the passion for truth. In like manner, if by morality we understand, as most of us do, merely the habits tending to the general well-being that are gradually formed under the influence of law and order, of such morality Christianity from the very beginning has always shown itself impatient. It has undergone much obloquy for doing so; it has often been reproached for its "to him that worketh not," for its "pecca ortiter," for its "cauld scraps of morality," and this is because Christianity is a religion, and religion even when it most favours morality remains distinct from it. do not say connected with its science and | in which the idea of art took form. Even its art, but incorporate with and almost where as in Christianity the two great inseparable from both? Science begins impulses which move mankind, religion in religious cosmogonies; art begins in and morality, by a rare happiness coincide, hymns sung to a deity and in the sculp- it is still easy to perceive their distinctture or painting that adorns his temple. ness. Christianity consecrates morality, At this day look at those classes of our yes! but gives it at the same time a new people who live completely in the old at- character. It arrives at the same results, mosphere. Their science is drawn from but, as it were, by a different road. Social the Book of Genesis; their art consists convenience, considerations of public orin favourite hymns. Nor is it just to say der, prudential calculation, have a princithat at a riper stage art and science do pal share in creating what is ordinarily and should assert their independence of called morality; the same morality in the religion; this is a mistaken interpretation hands of religion is animated anew, and of the historical fact that the organization extended without being altered. Religion, of religion is liable to become immovably in fact, treats morality just as genius - I conservative, and to drive into rebellion call it so to be understood; but it would or separation the artistic and scientific impulses which in the beginning were the breath of its own life. Art and science may indeed be often found completely independent of Churches, but, as these papers have labored to show, this is not because they have nothing to do with religion; on the contrary wherever they are found in appearance separate from religion, they form in reality rival or heretical religions. Nor is it less erroneous to suppose that religion is necessarily connected with morality, than to consider it as unconnected with science and art. Those who tell us that religion is only "morality touched with emotion," mean probably to say that this is the kind of religion they approve, or, it may be, all they mean is that this appears to them the original_and_genuine character of Christianity. But if we are inquiring what religion is, and not merely what we think it ought to be, we shall see that its connection with morality is often very slight; nay, that it often appears as the great enemy of morality. How often is it found this indeed was the discovery that made the philosophes of the eighteenth century so embittered against religion that while morality is fostered by good laws and wholesome institutions, by religion, on the contrary, bad passions are nourished, atrocious actions justified, and ancient abuses consecrated! And in the cases where religion has worked on the whole for good, its good effects have not always been perceived in the department of morality. Why is it that we think with pleasure and tenderness of the religion of ancient Greece? Not because we can trace to it much improvement in morality, except indeed in its primitive stages. In the phases of it best known to us, its moral influence was either slight or positively mischievous; but it was of priceless value to mankind as the mould We come back then to the position we have maintained all along-that religion is concerned with the whole higher life of man, and that this higher life is sustained by admiration or worship, so that art and science are as much included in religion as morality is, and that indeed morality is only included in religion when it severs itself from the utilities and conveniences with which it is commonly connected, and bases itself on the love or worship of man. But if so, religion has just the same sphere as the modern "culture." The formula in which culture was summed up by Goethe, answers pretty exactly to that threefold division of religion on which we have insisted; life in the whole, in the good, in the beautiful. Here morality, | universe, men speak of science; that is, under the name of life in the good, stands they put for the thing itself some process between art, which is life in the beautiful, closely connected with the thing. and science, or the knowledge of the law Nevertheless there comes practical misof the universe, which is life in the whole. chief from putting a word which denotes Thus if the friends of culture and those an artificial process in place of one which of religion do not very well agree together, marks a living spirit. The word religion it is none the less true that culture and makes us think of feelings, emotions, conreligion deal with the same things, and victions, or the acts that flow immediately have the same object. Both are concerned out of them; but the word culture makes with the higher life of man, and with the us think rather of the machinery of trainwhole of that higher life. Both have the ing, of art-schools, academies, universities. same adversary, though religion calls it All this machinery is of no use unless the worldliness, and culture calls it Philistin- living thing is there which it is intended to ism, in that predominance of the lower cultivate; and yet when the attention is life, which is fed by "bread alone," and so constantly called to the machinery this the object of which is livelihood, or re- is apt to be forgotten. The cry is, "Set spectability, or comfort. If they quarrel up more universities; pay people better among themselves, if culture is apt to for research," if the love of truth appears think religion narrow or superstitious, and to be less strong among us than it ought religion on the other hand charges culture to be. Or when the flatness and ugliness with epicureanism or want of seriousness, of English life is dwelt on, the believer in this is because both have the associations culture is apt to treat the evil as one which of their history sticking to them; because could be easily remedied by establishing religion, when it appears in the concrete, schools of art in the manufacturing disis Christian and ecclesiastical, that is, pre-tricts. And it may be true that art-schools dominantly moral in its spirit, and some- should be established and that research what archaic in form, while culture sprang should be encouraged, but it is also true up among literary men in recent times, that if the religion of beauty and the relig and is therefore spick-and-span in its equip-ion of truth were dead among us all such ment of phrases, and treats morality some- machinery would avail little. The teachwhat lightly compared with science and art. Such differences are merely historical, and the friction of time wears them away. The spirit of religion grows larger and recollects its original affinity with beauty and scientific truth; the spirit of culture grows every day more moral since the time when its great master Goethe betrayed the weakness of his original con-haps is here the main thing. But the ception in the helpless want of sympathy with which he regarded the first political struggles of reviving Germany. Culture, then, when it is purified, will answer fully to the old religiousness such as that would naturally grow to be in the new time. The new name is the best that could be chosen by those to whom the true name, religion, was forbidden by circumstances. The higher life of the human spirit, as we have so often said, consists in its religion, in the habitual admirations and devotions which keep it noble and sweet, but this higher life, like every form of life down to that of the vegetable, requires to be fostered according to a definite system. This system is culture: when, therefore, those who wish to speak of the higher life, and are afraid to call it religion, fall back upon the word culture, they use the same makeshift as when to avoid speaking of God revealed in the ing of art in that case would end only in lifeless mechanical imitation, and research, however encouraged, would lead only to new cobwebs of a barren scholasticism. In a Protestant country like this the danger affects art much more than science. The religion of truth and reality is not weak among us, and better machinery per religion of beauty is surely at the lowest ebb at the very time when art is more recognized and has a higher place given to it than ever before. This age will be remembered for having, as it were, established art among us, for having asserted its dignity as a pursuit by the side of pol itics, for new relations established between the different kinds of art, painters rising into poetry and setting the fashion in literary taste, great authors employing their eloquence to celebrate paintings and painters, novelists and dramatists depicting with a new interest the character, life, and struggles of the artist. But the age will scarcely be remembered for any increase in the general fund of feeling and imagination in which art finds its materials; scarcely as an age in which English life has grown more poetical, more picturesque, or more harmonious. And yet the public interest is not that a large number of cred |