commit ye whoredom after their abominations? For when ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons to pass through the fire, ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day: and shall I be enquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, saith Adoni god, I will not be enquired of by you.

See also the allegory of Judah and her sister, Ezekiel xvi.; and Nehemiah ix. 9-38.

CHAPTER X.

RELIGION OR WORSHIP.

Thou great first cause, least understood,
Who all my sense confined

To know but this, that Thou art good
And that myself am blind.

THE use of the word religion cannot be avoided. worship is more appropriate.

Pope.

But the word

or

Worship is indefinite, signifying the greatest veneration of the pious towards their god or their supreme god, the admiration of the grand and beautiful phenomena of nature, reverence respect for any of one's fellow creatures, and even for names and symbols.

The Egyptian worship of. the crocodile, the Assyrian worship of the dove, their standard, was no more a feeling of religion than the British worship of St. George, or that of a regiment for the banner under which they have won their battles, or the stag or dog which marches before them.

It is an error to associate the objects of these various degrees of worship into a mythology, and to regard them as constituting a religion of any people.

The Greek and Roman notion of the apotheosis of a hero or an emperor was far short of the notion among some Christians of the canonization of a monk. The preacher who denies the epithet Divus to Augustus Cæsar and the Antonines calls himself and his fellows divine.

But the degree of worship towards its objects differed according to the minds of its worshippers. The philosopher regarded with admiration or respect only, that before which the ignorant fell down in abject supplication.

When the word religion is used in this work, except in reference to the unknown God, it must be regarded as a substitute for

worship, with the preceding qualifications; and the words god and gods must be accepted in accordance with the notions of their worshippers.

The true distinction is, that reverence of the Deity alone constitutes religion. The reverence of all symbols, representatives, and intermediates, constitutes worship.

Pomp, ceremonial, and splendour, and a vast train of votaries does not constitute religion. That which is contemptible in the eyes of a wealthy and luxurious community, is grand in the eyes of a tribe of poor savages who have seen nothing more gorgeous.

Nor does the circumstance of a worship being exhibited in an elaborated collection of dogmas, ordinances, stories, laws, rites, and ceremonies, constitute it religion, however admirable many of the sentiments expressed in it may be.

It is a favourite assertion of Christian writers, more zealous than discreet, that scepticism and science tend to the destruction of religion. If they mean the Christian religion, the assertion is correct. They truly are terrible engines for the demolition of dogmas and fictions; but, as such, the most potential means of extending religion in its proper sense.

The Christians have always been alarmed at philosophy. The disciples preached against it; and from their time the church has never ceased its efforts to extirpate it.

Colossians ii. 8. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

Jesus required his disciples to listen to him with the credulity of little children, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

The Real-the Physical or the Natural: and the Spiritual or the Ultra-natural, the Non-natural and the Contra-natural.—Reason is confined to the knowledge of the real. It does not deny, it is simply ignorant of the non-natural department of the spiritual. It does not know that there are not, it does not know, or even believe that there are, existences beyond the limits of nature. But reason knows that there are no existences contra-natural, controlling or repugnant to nature.

Reason cannot account for the existence, organisation, and order of the whole universe of nature. It cannot conceive its creation out of nothing, it cannot imagine its self-creation-for that would be nothing creating itself. Reason sinks in gratitude and religious reverence of a wonderful power, surpassing all its faculties, and is

not so vain as to presume to form a conception of God. Reason denies the capacity of those who attempt to do so.

Revelation. There is one glorious revelation which spreads its beneficent influence over all peoples: the sun, the moon, and the stars of heaven, the beauty of all terrestrial productions; the harmonies of universal nature. The magnificent panorama displays the power and grandeur of God.

None can question its evidence, every mind concurs in its testimony. The zealot alone blinds himself to this splendid manifestation of Deity, and grovels in the worship of a name, an image,

or a man.

Mediates. If some intermediate or emblem is necessary to concentrate our attention upon, or to stimulate our gratitude towards, the incomprehensible deity, it is better to worship, as such emblems, the sun rising in his glory, or the moon in her serene walk through the cerulean canopy, or the innumerable bright suns ruling the thousands of systems of the universe, than kneel or stand in worship before a saintly image, an enriched reredos, or the most splendid painting that human art ever produced.

Gorgeous displays, illumination from golden candlesticks, imagery, and garments of splendid colours, and adorned with glitter and jewels, ceremonious processions, perfumes and music, and the modulated voice of the priest, or one or more of these, are adopted in the temples built and adorned by human hands to awaken the mind of the superstitious, and to address it to the particular notion of godhead which the priesthood of that temple proclaims.

Induce man to walk forth into the temple constructed by the God of the universe in all its magnificence-in the morning, in the mid-day, in the evening, in the night. His matin gratitude may be inspired by the glorious illumination of only one of God's luminaries, spreading its effulgence and vivifying influences throughout the whole canopy of the visible heaven, enriching it with beauty and splendour surpassing all that human imagination can conceive. Let him gather gratitude from the gratitude of all nature, the expansion of the foliage, the opening of the flowers, the basking and frolicking of the cattle and all the beasts, and the universal harmony and symphony of the birds. Let him feel his own frame expanding with the genial influence of that minister of God. All is expanding in gratitude; and unless his nature has been hardened and debased, below that of all the surrounding grateful beings, by superstition, so is he.

Change the scene to mid-day. That messenger appears in a power and splendour too great for mortal beings to continuously endure; yet but a faint emblem of the splendour, power, and majesty of God.

Change the scene to evening, and the setting, to our particular part of this planet, of this one glorious messenger of God, the sun. Overspreading the west with beauty and placid magnificence; picturing mountains, and islands, and seas, and lakes, in exquisite attractiveness, he departs, as it were, from us, blessing all creation, and persuading them to love and harmony, as he goes away; leaving his lovely paintings to fade so gently as to indicate with what gentleness we ought to cause our more excited feelings to soften and subside into peace.

Change the scene to night. The one great messenger of God to this earth has not deserted the vitality which he had cherished and nourished during the day. The influence of his constant presence would be too powerful for animal and vegetable nature to sustain. He has left them to calm contemplation and repose. Another messenger of God comes to pour down upon them a gentler illumination, to consummate the soothing influence of the departed sun, and to harbinger the display, so far as human eye with all its aids can contemplate it, of the magnificent universal temple of God.

The glorious starry night.-Away with lamps, candles, and adornments, though of jewels and gold. Look out upon the stars. Ye need not maps and catalogues of them. Ye need not have studied astronomy or astrology. Look at the innumerable stars. Ye need not inquire whether there are any planets, except our own splendid planets, or whether we see only all suns, around which planets. equal, less, or greater than our own, revolve. All these magnificent messengers of God, which we so distinctly behold, indicate that we behold no more, because they are beyond the power of human ken.

The sun is to rule the day, and the moon and the stars are to rule the night, for terrestrial purposes; and among those the human race-not as candlesticks and lamps, but to illuminate the mind.

Compare with this the little lights of the little Jewish temple, or of the most magnificent temple ever constructed by human hands. Compare with the harmony of all nature the most exquisite harmonies of the most perfect choir. The sweetest of human voices combined is only a very small portion of the harmonious voice of nature swelling in gratitude to nature's God.

Away with all partizan priestly influences, which would create