the Will to whom it is addressed can be moved and changed by expressions of human desire. The multitude will have stated and formal worship: and, under Theism, stated and formal worship tends of necessity to decline; for, in its view and under its influence, all life becomes worshipful, all service is divine, the distinction between sacred and secular is abolished, all days are holy days, and all work is holy work. Theism establishes a sublime and majestic monotony throughout the universe. Fancy is allowed no room for play in the immense spaces between the worlds. The central Being blots out subordinate divinities as the sun blots out the stars. The silent laws sweep on from end to end of the world; and secondary causes, solemn or sportive, but always human and attractive, make haste to slip out of the way. Jacob's ladder, on which the spirits ascend and descend, is taken down; and men must watch, wait, and labor under the cold light of the one great Eye. The multitude cannot bear this. They want sign and miracle and angel-forms; skies full of guardian spirits; helpers, inspirers, comforters in the air. There is no intimation at present that this ancient want is diminishing. Spiritualism has revived under more modern shape the dæmonology and angelology of the Roman Church: it has set up the Jacob's ladder again, which Rationalism had pulled down, and has re-established communication with beings in another sphere. For this the millions love it, and cling to it, and give up their old religion for it. Faith in the supernatural has changed its base, but it has not lost its charm; and it will hold the world spell-bound for many and many an age to come. Philosophers may be multiplying, and, as they multiply, Theism will be their faith; but this generation must pass before they will represent any considerable number of mankind. If the tendency of the present period of speculation is not towards Theism, still less is it towards Atheism. The number of blank atheists, the number of people who believe in no controlling will or law or intelligence or force, in no personal or impersonal Cause, we are persuaded is diminishing steadily and rapidly. "We are born loyal." Men will neither be defrauded nor bullied out of their belief in God. If all the knowledges were to combine to prove that there was and could be no God, their fancy would straightway invent one; and the writer of the knowledges would be the most quickwitted in invention. In former times, science was "atheistic," because it overturned the idols that men worshipped, and showed that they were logs of wood or blocks of stone, bundles of paper or masks of pasteboard. The Bible-God of the theologians fell; the creed-God fell; the altar-God fell; the church-God fell; the Jupiter and Apollo and Diana of Christendom came down in dust and noise, and men shuddered. But modern science reinstates the Supreme Deity, by revealing order, harmony, law, growth, progress, development, intention, use, beauty, in every department of the world. Wherever there is cause and effect, there is the liv ing God; and science demonstrates the working of cause and effect to the utter and final confusion of the old Atheism, which took refuge in the numberless hiding-places of chance. The modern tendency is to believe in too much God rather than in too little; and science is answerable for the tendency. Theologians are trying with desperate toil to stake out the limitations of law, and to fence in some little nook where they could allow men to disport themselves without being overlooked by Deity. Atheism, indeed! We believe, that, were the race to be polled this moment, there would be found more intelligent, rational believers in God than ever were suspected of being in existence before. The tendency of modern speculation is rather towards an undefined Pantheism. From every quarter the voices that come to us speak of law as originating, directing, controlling. Even the English mind would fain be pantheistical if it could; and would succeed in becoming so but for the adamantine stubbornness of the English individuality, which stands out against all invasion even of the Supreme, and cannot lose itself even in the ocean of the Infinite. The Englishman is constitutionally a Theist. The European mind, on the contrary, is saturated with pantheistic sentiment and thought. So is the American. In fact, Deity has become so immense in our view, so illimitable, so all-pervading; it has so mingled its life with that of the world; so identified its will with the forces of the universe; so associated its being with the elements of human existence; so completely taken up into itself the interests, thoughts, endeavors of society; so insinuated its energy into all the forms of active influence,- that it is difficult to give it individuality or personality in the ordinary sense, and too late to snatch any portion of our individuality from its possession. The multitude, feeling Eternal Arms about them, and the breath of all-pervading Spirit in their very souls, can do nothing but resign themselves to the absorbing influence. Pantheism is the fascinating element in Swedenborg, in Spiritualism, in Transcendentalism, in the new forms of Christianity. Theodore Parker was as much Pantheist as Theist. He would have been wholly Pantheist, if his adamantine personality had not brought his speculation to terms whenever it threatened to carry him off his feet. Pantheism falls in with and encourages the vague, vast longing and aspiration of our time. It does not confine like Theism, nor chill like Atheism. It is warm, nebulous, expansive, with a rich, inexhaustible atmosphere. It is at once mighty and mild, terrible and tender. It is a philosophy, a faith, and a religion. It fills the mind with awe and mystery. It excites the imagination with conceptions of the supernatural, with vague, shadowy images of power. It admits of an infinitely varied symbolism, borrowed from nature, all whose forms are emblematical of spirit. It awakens adoration, homage, worship; it suggests prostration, self-humiliation, self-abasement, self-denial, and sacrifice, absorption in the Supreme.* It is infinitely soft, tender, and gracious, rich in consolations, opulent in patience and hope and childlike trust. "I accept the charge of pantheism," says Professor Hedge, "not in the cheerless, impious sense of a God all world, and a world instead of God, but in the true and primary sense of a world all God; i.e., a God co-present to all his works, pervading and embracing all, - a God, in apostolic phrase, 'in whom and through whom are all things.' If this is pantheism, it is the pantheism which has ever been the doctrine of the deepest piety; it is the pantheism professed by devout men in every age of the world." — Reason in Religion, p. 81. - Interpreted by it, the creeds of the world, which Rationalism had deprived of their significance, have a deep and wonderful import. Fall, redemption, incarnation, sacrifice, faith, atonement, endless bliss, and perdition, clothe themselves with majesty once more. The doctrine of inspiration assumes a noble character. There is no rite, ceremony, or observance of the Church that does not, when tended by it, shine with a new beauty, and attract by a new fascination. The Pantheists of Germany-Strauss, for instance, in the closing chapter of the "Life of Jesus;" Baur, in his "Doctrine of Trinity"— reinstate the popular theology, under the form of symbolism, with an unction that is worthy of the elect. Philosophy and faith meet on this ground, and kiss each other. Sage and devotee alike are satisfied. One may be whichever he chooses, a Mystic or a Rationalist, and be either honestly. He may be Catholic of the Roman Church, or Protestant of the liberal school. Champions of fate and freewill need not quarrel; for to be free under laws of nature is to be bound, and to be bound by the laws of spirit is to be free. The wilful is fated; the servant is delivered. The doctrine lends itself to every spiritual exigency, offers a solution for every spiritual problem, and opens a path by which all can travel to the realms of light. The grinding movement of the great wave of thought, as it is driven on over all surfaces, has a grand levelling and obliterating effect. Artificial lines are rubbed out, local peculiarities are effaced, and certain broad marks alone remain to indicate the character of the action which has been at work. The word "sect" is unpopular. The thing "sectarianism" is more unpopular still, and must defend itself as it can against the hostile regards of modern men. Ideas are more respected than opinions. Truths command more interest than doctrines. People look for principles that reconcile rather than for dogmas that divide, and go hunting everywhere for the long parallel or concentric lines that indicate the track of an intellectual impulse. Discussions turn less on incidental than on radical points. The ground of unity,where is that? men ask: how do thoughts stand related to one another? and where is the trace of connection? for somewhere a connection there must be. However various, divergent, and apparently opposite the effects may be, there is a cause for them all, and one cause, if we will take pains to find it. This is, perhaps, the most encouraging single sign of our epoch. We all know that we are moving, and that we are moving together under the same general impulse. We are all prepared, too, for changes; and for changes that may assimilate us very nearly with forms of thought which now seem strange and unattractive. Hence a diminution of bigotry; hence a decrease of jealousy, distrust, suspicion, apprehension, and fear; hence an increase of hope, and a feeling of expectation, even in troubled times, which will outlive feeling a multitude of disappointments. We are sure, on all sides, that "If our bark sink, 'tis to another sea." We have no fear that the pantheistic tendencies of modern thought will weaken the foundations of ethical principle among the masses of the people or in individual lives. It has been made abundantly clear, by studies on Buddhism and Brahminism, that pantheistic ideas may consist with personal and social morals of a very noble order. In spite of the restlessness, the lawlessness, the license, the tameless audacity of the American mind, the rage for innovation, and the impatience of custom, there are good reasons for believing that moral ideas are gradually purifying themselves; and that the standards of moral conduct are insensibly conforming to rational rules. It would be interesting to compare the ethical dicta of our shifting period with those of former stationary epochs, and trace the influence of the respective ages on each. We have no time for that here; but we affirm our belief that the advantage, in point of elevation and justice, would be with ours. Miss Cobbe declares the fundamental canons of the faith of the future to be obviously these three great principles: The absolute goodness of God; The final salvation of every created soul; The divine authority of conscience. The last |