printing, railroads, steam, the telegraph-all these in due time; all by the skill of man. Man is competent to these things. There is no need of a revelation. The world, in its infancy, was not prepared for these things, and a revelation in regard to them would not have been understood. It was better to raise up men from time to time who would strike out great inventions when the world needed them than to communicate the knowledge by revelation; it was better that the human intellect should be sharpened and disciplined by these discoveries; it was better that men should be stimulated by the hope of useful inventions; and it was better that the knowledge of them should be brought on the stage when they would fit into human society, than to anticipate all, and render the human powers flaccid and useless by a revelation anticipating these things.

If religion is of the same nature as this; if man is equally competent to solve the great questions of religion that pertain to him, then it is plain that religion would have been left in this manner, and that a revelation being unnecessary, none would have been given, and consequently that all pretended revelations are false. The enemies of the Bible, therefore, are pursuing a legitimate line of thought in endeavoring to show that man has all the powers necessary to ascertain what is needful to be known of God, and consequently that the Bible and all other pretended revelations are false.

In considering now the particular subject before us -the limitations of the human mind on the subject of religion—it will be proper to direct your attention first to the limitations on the subject from the nature of the human mind itself, and then the illustrations which

have been furnished by the results of the experiments which have been made.

The particular thoughts necessary to be presented under the first of these topics-the limitations on the subject from the nature of the mind itself-are the following: those limitations in the faculties of the mind in respect to the processes of reasoning; the limitations in the power of intuition; and the limitations in the instruments which man employs in his discoveries, or in enlarging the scope of his natural vision.

(1.) The powers of mind-created mind-mind as found in man-seem vast, are vast. It is not necessary for us, in exalting revelation, or in showing the necessity of revelation, to disparage or underrate those powers. The developments of mind in the ordinary processes of society, and in the discoveries which men have made in the sciences, lifting the whole race to a higher level, have been amazing. This is especially so when God, departing from the ordinary course of things, creates a great intellect as he originally created great mountains, or rocks, or oceans, or as he creates great worlds as illustrations of what he can do; as showing how he might have made the race; as showing, perhaps, how he does make other races; as furnishing a higher illustration than ordinary of what he himself is, lifting man, as by a sudden elevation, toward himself. Thus, in the upheavings of the lands in the old geological periods, in general the lands upheaved were low plains or elevated plateaus on a level, or gentle eminences diversifying the landscape, or here and there loftier mountains-the ranges of the Andes, the Alleghanies, the Apennines, the Alps, while at great intervals there stands the lofty Dhavalagiri, the Chimborazo, the Sorata of Nevada, and Mont Blanc, rising far into loftier

atmospheres, as a few men, like Newton, stand far above the ordinary individuals of the race.

There are men—a few men—of such capacity that they seem to approach almost all subjects with equal ease; men who have by intuition, as Pascal had, what other men secure by slow processes and by long-continued trial; who begin where other men leave off; 'many-sided" men, to whom all subjects appear equally easy, and with whom it seems to be a mere matter of will and choice what particular department they shall pursue to make themselves immortal.

But, while this appears to be so, the range of subjects on which any man, however richly endowed, may distinguish and immortalize himself, is very limited, and is confined within very narrow and very carefully-defined boundaries. There is, and there has been, no "universal genius." There is, and there has been, no man whose capacities are equally adapted to all the subjects of science and art, of poetry, rhetoric, and eloquence; of war, of statesmanship, of invention, and of practical life, in which they might equally acquire distinction. Society, indeed, required in its adjustments that within a limited range the powers of a man might be adapted -perhaps equally adapted-to any one of a number of pursuits; that in any one of them within that range he might be successful or might excel. This was necessary, in order that at any one time there might be talent enough on the earth for all the necessary objects of life, and that there might be, within a reasonable range, the liberty of a choice-a concession to human freedom and responsibility. But the range is a limited one, and within that a man must make his choice. He must be a farmer, or a seaman, or a mechanic, or a musician, or a poet, or a merchant, or a philosopher, or an artist; he

can not be all. Between perhaps four or five of these he must make his choice, and within that range he must determine how his life is to be spent. It is rare that a man is distinguished in more than one of these things. Michael Angelo was, indeed, distinguished, perhaps equally, as a painter, sculptor, and architect ;* Shakspeare was equally distinguished in comedy, in farce, and in tragedy; and there is now one living man among us a foreignert-who, it is said, has already, in four separate and distinct departments of science, achieved in each a reputation, a like distinction in any one of which would have placed him at the head of that particular science. This "play" or this variety of endowment is given to men not only that they may have a choice, but that there may be at any one time on the earth talent enough for all that talent is to do in that one age.

Again, there is a necessary limitation in regard to the attainments which men may make, as compared with what remains that is as yet unknown. We all remember the remark of Newton, "child-like sage;"

*This idea is expressed on his tomb in the church of Santa Croce, in Florence. Beneath the monument there are three statues, personifying Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, and at the base of the monument an inscription, of which the following is a part:

+ Agassiz.

"Michaeli Angelo Bonaratio

E vetusta Simoniorum Familia.
Sculptori, Pictori et Architecto

Fama omnibus notissimo."

"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."-Brewster's Life of Newton, pp. 300, 301, Harper's ed., 1832.

and we remember, too, the sarcastic remarks of Pope on the discoveries of Newton himself, showing how little, after all the discoveries made by him, as compared with the knowledge of higher intelligences, may be, and what, in this respect, is the general condition of mankind on the subject of knowledge:

"Superior beings, when of late they saw

A mortal man unfold all nature's law,
Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape,
And showed a Newton as we show an ape."

After all, how limited is the range of human thought and knowledge! We are to remember that ordinarily man is compelled to spend one third of the length of life in acquiring what has been known before, and putting himself in a position to begin his own investigations, as if one preparing to explore distant continents should be compelled to spend one third of his days in reaching it; we are to remember that any man is liable to be cut down at any moment, his career of brilliant discovery but just begun; we are to remember that the faculties of man begin soon to decay, and that the imbecility of age, if life is lengthened out, is almost like the imbecility of childhood-life ending as it began; we are to remember that the active average life of man, in which he must do all that he is to do, is but little over twenty years; and we are to remember, also, that the range of his inquiries is limited by the fact that they must be within the scope of his reason, where he may have instruments to aid him, and where he may have the light of other ages to guide him. But what if there are boundless fields wholly beyond that range; if there are worlds which he can not penetrate; if there is an infinity in God in reference to which he has no faculties or powers to investigate or understand