One of the most beautiful and sublime aspects of Divine Providence is the ethereal and infinite nature of all high truths and holy feelings. Religion, like music, cannot be compelled to express anything bad. Whatever words are appropriated to a tune, the tones preserve their purity. If there is evil done, the language must do it; the divine element of music has no share in the degrading office. A rough voice may mar its sweetness, a false ear may confuse the measure; but the true ear, that listens, perceives the inherent beauty, and the clear voice repeats it. In vain have theologians set rancorous words to a gentle tune. The spirit of Christ's teaching eludes their efforts; as he himself passed through the midst of those who would seize him, and went his way. Churches may anathematize each other; but above their discordant utterance, penitents hear the consoling voices of Mary Magdalen and the Prodigal Son, and the dying beggar smiles while he hears Lazarus call him to the gates of heaven.

It is true that mere theological tenets may do much and prolonged mischief. The abstract idea that Matter was the origin of Evil has produced an immense amount of physical and moral disease in the world. Thousands and thousands have starved and lacerated their bodies, and stifled the kindliest emotions of human nature, in consequence of it. For centuries, it changed the entire social system, by banishing a very large proportion of men and women into convents. The influence of it to this day infects our ideas of love and marriage. A spiritual-minded woman once confessed to me she was greatly shocked by the news that Dr. Channing was about to be married; "because she had always considered him such a saint." The old Hindoo idea was lurking there, in the extremest form of Protestantism.

But even the most repulsive and fantastic forms of theology often embodied a high idea. The rage for celibacy, which prevailed at one period of the world, was an excessive reaction from the tendency to bury the soul in material things; thus making the body a sepulchre instead of a

temple, or a pleasant house. Augustine's doctrine, that a Christian should be willing to be damned for the glory of God, was only a very extreme form of expressing the beautiful idea of self-renunciation. The complicated Gnostic theories concerning Christ's derivation from the Supreme Being, through successive emanations, were but the utterance of the heart, stammering its homage through the imperfect medium of the intellect. Their wild poetic myths about Ennoia and Sophia Achamoth are obviously intended to represent the human soul, aspiring after the beautiful and the true, but snared by the temptations of life, chained by its necessities, mournfully conscious of its own degradation, forever striving to raise its fettered wings, and imploring aid from Higher Powers, to soar toward pure spiritual regions. Al Sirat, the hair-breadth bridge over flames of hell, placed before the entrance of Paradise, conveys to spiritual-minded Moslems a true picture of our earthly pilgrimage, where all human souls need good angels to help them across narrow bridges over gulfs of fire.

Always there is a saving power at work to guard the inner life from destruction. We are told that when Job was delivered to Satan, God stipulated that he should spare his life. The same reservation is made with regard to human hearts when they are made over to theology to be tormented. Human affections were given up to monasteries, to deal with them as they would; but kill them utterly they could not. Some vestiges of natural feeling remained in monks, and took refuge behind their consecrated symbols. Pictures of the "Queen of Heaven" often glowed with the sunlight of woman's tenderness, and fragrant memories of mothers and sisters were breathed around them, mingled at times with gentle visions of a wife that might have been. With all their stern stifling of nature, I doubt whether they could have worshipped the image of a man with such tender reverence. Nuns also, however orthodox their belief concerning original sin, and the unholiness of marriage, were doubtless attracted toward infant innocence in those pictures, and loved the child in that

mother's arms, not always as an incarnated God, but as a human babe. In their visions of a spiritual bridegroom, nature sometimes mingled with grace, though the feeling lay concealed from their consciousness under a mystic veil. This is very observable in the ecstatic language of St. Theresa, concerning her union with Christ; portions of which would not have been altogether inappropriate, if addressed by Eloise to Abelard.

Even in the external observances and arbitrary power of the church there were many compensating influences. Images and pictures abounded, as they did in Pagan temples; but the idea they embodied was on a higher plane. Philosophers adored Beauty and Power in the statues of their gods. Christians venerated Purity, Gentleness, and Benevolence, in images of the Virgin and her Son. Whatever condition of things grows out of a certain state of society, must necessarily be in some degree best adapted to that state. Such a bishop as Ambrose could not rise up in England, or the United States. Obedience to such an one would be altogether a retrograde movement in society. But under the irresponsible despotism of Roman emperors, it was a positive blessing to mankind to have the civil power restrained by reverence for the ecclesiastical. The public penance imposed on the emperor Theodosius, for an act of barbarous injustice to the populace, was a salutary lesson to kings; and that a bishop was moved to do it, proved the increasing importance of the people's cause. The agents of Christianity, even when grasping at wealth and power, were employed by Providence to advance a democratic principle in the world, though they were generally unconscious agents. The universal custom of bequeathing large estates to the church did an immense amount of evil, in many ways. It encouraged men in the selfish and indolent idea of sinning while life and health lasted, and then purchasing salvation with money; it defrauded rightful heirs; and it rendered the church inordinately powerful, arrogant, and avaricious. But even this practice had some good results. To a considerable degree,

monks were conveyancers of the wealth of rich robbers to the defrauded poor; for monasteries were asylums for homeless orphans and wandering beggars, hospitals for indigent invalids, and resting places for travellers. The old barriers of rank were likewise broken down by monasticism. Chrysostom, urging people to embrace it, says: "Even the sons of peasants and artificers, who enter this state of life, become so revered, that the first of the land are not ashamed to visit their cells, and consider it an honour to converse with them."

To a liberal soul, it is pleasant to find indications that, in the midst of fiercest controversy, the spirit of Christianity had not departed from the churches, and was not confined to them; that some, of all classes, paid voluntary homage to the good and the true. It is consoling to read of Christians, who thought Socrates and Plato might have been inspired by a portion of the Logos; and of Platonists, who acknowledged Jesus was one of the divine messengers sent by God to men. It is a beautiful picture, that of Christians in Carthage, risking their lives to tend Pagans smitten with the pestilence; and of Christians in Nicomedia, throwing open their granaries in time of famine, to feed the hungry multitude of unbelievers. It is cheering to read of Pagan magistrates, who evaded the laws, or stretched them to the utmost, to avoid inflicting penalties, and who were accustomed to give secret warning to Christians in time of danger. It makes one in love with human nature, to find Roman citizens refusing to be bound by the laws, during Diocletian's persecution, and acting from a higher law in their own hearts, which led them to risk their own property and personal safety, rather than betray fugitives, who had taken refuge with them. It is encouraging to all who wish to break down partition walls, to hear the orator Libanius pleading so earnestly in behalf of persecuted Christians, who had shown moderation in their day of power. It is touching to hear the much-wronged Israelites uniting their voices with Christians in Psalms of lamentation, at the funerals of good bishops. These things VOL. III.-39

convey instructive lessons, which the world would do wisely to take to heart; for though nearly two thousand years have rolled away since the introduction of Christianity, men have not yet learned to view each other's religions with justice and candour.

While contending about the divinity of Christ's person, the divinity of his example has been comparatively neglected. The only real point of union for mankind, is in the acknowledgment of great moral principles. The theology of all religions is something extraneous and imperfect, which took shape from previous opinions, and peculiar circumstances of the time. It is, therefore, necessarily subject to change, and destined to pass away. But there is no occasion for alarm lest changes should come before the way is prepared for them. Conservatives may console themselves with Carlyle's wise remark: "The old skin never falls off, till a new one has formed under it." We may safely trust the preservation of truth to Him who guides the stars. Every particle of genuine life, contained within decaying forms of thought, will fall like ripe seed from a withered stem, and produce fresh plants, which will gradually develop with the progress of man, and ripen into spiritual flowers and fruit of more perfected varieties, than any the world has yet seen. The present forms of Christianity will vanish, and become traditional records, in the lapse of ages; but all that really makes it a religion will · remain forever. As long as there are human souls, they will acknowledge Christ as a Son of God. Not because councils have decreed it; but because they will find in his example and precepts what they most desire to be, in their highest states of aspiration, when they are most filled with reverence for God, with compassion for the sufferings and faults of their fellow creatures, and with humility in view of their own deficiences. Because Jesus taught mankind to cast out the Demon Penalty, by means of the Angel Attraction, therefore shall all the ages honour and bless him. His precepts will be more and more venerated, the more they are examined in their own pure light, the more