Who can look at the hills and plains of the earth, covered with grass and trees, all clothed with beauty and richness, springing with life and freshness and supporting flocks and herds and tribes of men; who can look at all this glorious envelopment without a feeling of wonder and adoration? If our sense of time could be quickened so as to make the duration of a year seem but an hour, or a minute, the earth and its vesture would appear a living thing; coming and departing vegetation would appear to move rapidly before our eyes, the assuming and putting off annual verdure, the grass of the fields and the leaves of the trees, would seem like the peaceful breathing of a person in sleep; the earth would appear a gigantic living being, invested with life and all vital motions and forces.

LITCHFIELD, July 5, 1891.

RELIGIOUS FORMS.

Whilst believing in the infinite mercy and goodness of God, and being confidently willing to trust to that alone, I entertain profound respect and consideration for those who trust in dogmas and theories of atonement and in church organizations and religious observances, and I would not for the world discourage them from performing their pious work. They do great good to those who cannot be affected by religious principles in any other way. Churches and preaching and prayers, and worship in every form, have wonderfully effective uses; and those who minister therein should be treated with all courtesy and respect for their sincere efforts

to benefit others and for the great good they do. "Do not wonder at these amulets," said Pericles on his sickbed to Alcibiades, "above all do not order them to be removed. The kind old nurses who has been carefully watching over me day and night are persuaded that they will save my life. Superstition is rarely so kindhearted; whenever she is unable, as we are, to reverence, let us at least respect her." I would not only respect, I would reverence the kind intentions of a sincere minister, and of all others who have a firm conviction in a religious creed. Whatever may be our own views, and however well settled and grounded, we cannot, without danger to society and its dearest interests, turn our backs upon the religious institutions which play so important a part in humanizing and refining mankind. No other religious belief, or disbelief, could have done so much for the elevation and refinement of the human race as Christianity has done during the last eighteen hundred years.

If we do not believe in miracles, we may well believe in the vast importance and benefit of those hoary traditions of Divine influence which have become as effective for good with the great mass of mankind as if they were based on the most certain deductions of reason and experience. When they become merged into idle superstition and the plea for cruel and proscriptive intolerance, they may be justly opposed; but when only employed for the promotion of religious and pious affections, they are of incalculable value to society. It will only be when men become perfect that positive institutions of religion can be safely dispensed with.

But there is no reason why a man of superior intelligence should allow his own spiritual equanimity

and calm trust in the Divine goodness to be disturbed. His accounts between him and his Maker are, of all things, his own affair, not to be meddled with by others. If meddled with from good or kindly motives, he can afford to indulge the intrusion with kind and grateful acquiescence. At the same time, when called to approach the presence of his infinite and beneficent Creator, he can do so with a feeling of sure dependence on His paternal love. He may have been erratic and offending, but he is a child, and may at last rely on his Heavenly Father's paternal love.

June, 1889.

DANGER OF ABROGATING RELIGIOUS FORMS.

Suppose the guesses of Science are true, and that creation has proceeded by a process of development for countless ages, producing species and genera one after another, and proceeding gradually from rude to high and delicate organizations-according to laws implanted in the system which we call nature and the worldwithout any direct intervention of a separate intelligence and without any direct communication from such intelligence of the principles of knowledge or duty; these being left, like all else, to be developed by natural causes, by reason and experience. Suppose all this to be true. Is the world ripe for such knowledge? Evidently not. Ages must yet transpire. Too many are interested in the support of existing systems, and the masses are too little developed in moral perception and principle to make it safe to abandon the artificial methods and sanctions by which order is maintained. Resistance to the prejudices of mankind only injures

him who offers it. If a community imposed the penalty of death for wearing scarlet, none but a fool would put it on. Until the world is ready for the truth, it is not safe to communicate it, except to the select few who can be trusted to embrace and guard it; that select few who are governed by inherent and unbending rectitude. The wise man will continue to respect and observe the laws, usages and modes which prevail, and which society regards as essential to the conservation of order and morality. Mankind in general can only be gradually awakened to truth. The light of science will, in the end, quench the farthing candles of error and superstition. But the time cannot be hastened by violence. So long as the moral and social habiliments which men choose to wear are productive of good and not of evil, it is not necessary for one to seek martyrdom by a bold declaration of the whole truth. Let such cherish it in his own bosom without thrusting it offensively upon others. Like the little leaven hidden by the housewife in the meal, it will gradually, but surely, permeate the whole lump. At present, however, the existing institutions are productive of good, and therefore necessary. To overthrow them would be to overthrow morality. In cutting loose from established forms, one is apt to cut loose from the standards of duty themselves, and is in danger of running into wild and fathomless speculation. These standards are the result of ages of human experience, and ought to be regarded as sacred as if directly communicated by a personal Deity. The fiction that they were so communicated may give them additional power over feeble intellects, and should not be rudely dispelled from their imaginations. A wise man,

therefore, will not only tolerate, but continue to observe, the forms of religious and moral practicenot because founded on supernatural sanctions, as is pretended, but because they have been found of great use in preserving and inculcating the principles of order and duty, on which all human happiness is based.

THE SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

The injunction to keep holy the Sabbath, though included in the ten commandments, is not an obligation of natural law, but was a special regulation imposed upon the Israelites as a nation; and, therefore, it is not of perpetual or universal obligation. It was not adopted as an institution of Christianity, but was expressly repudiated as such. The early Christians, desirous of having a set day for religious assemblies, as well as for a festival, selected the first day of the week; first, in order to show their repudiation of the Sabbath; secondly, as a memorial of Christ's resurrection. But, aside from meeting together for worship, and enjoying the day as a festival, they attached no religious sanctity to it inconsistent with the pursuit of their ordinary avocations and amusements. It was not until later times, when the ecclesiastical spirit became more dominant, that it was enforced as a Sabbath.

In support of these propositions we might rely on the authority of the learned Selden, who treats of the Sabbath in Book III, cc. 19-23 of his work, De Jure Naturæ et gentium apud Hebræos; also of Milton in his posthumous publication, De Doctrina Christiana.