ious creeds both of ancient and modern times. Every religion has its miracles, mysteries, and martyrs. Each boasts of the most irrefragable testimonies, the most respectable authorities, and the most plausible reasons; each is proposed as true, and requires unbounded belief and blind obedience. The Indians who rub themselves with cow's-dung; the Jews who eat no pork; the Mahometans who neither drink wine nor eat pork, but make, at least, one pilgrimage to Mecca during their lives; and the believers in the infinite number of other religious creeds scattered over the world, have all received special revelations. Diametrically opposite and even immoral opinions, have been defended even to death, and always in the persuasion that God was rather to be obeyed than man. If any article of faith be found irrational, it is called a mystery, and belief in it is not at all less obligatory. Who does not know that it is the will of God, and necessary to salvation, to make war, or to maintain peace, to immolate victims, or to preserve that which God has created, to sing kneeling or standing upright, the head covered or uncovered, to repeat certain prayers in a foreign language, to eat certain dishes on certain days, to eat them cold or warm, to burn perfumes, &c., &c.? However dissimilar religious doctrines may be in regard to the attributes of God, to his influence on us, to the nature of the soul and its future state, belief is always supported by revelation; it is always God who has spoken either immediately or by means of his messengers.

Religious belief has its advantages and disadvantages. To the former belong the powerful influence it exercises on our actions; and though I am far from rejecting natural goodness, I am, however, convinced from experience, that benevolent persons who have religious belief, are more ready to assist their suffering neighbor than those who have no other motive to act but their innate charity. This, too, is easily conceived since our actions depend on motives; and the greater the number of the latter is, with the more confidence we may expect their effect. On the other hand, however, I do not think that religious belief alone is sufficient to dispose every one to act with charity and righteousness. I merely reckon

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among the powerful motives of action, and like to see it employed as a means of happiness, but lament every sort of disorder inseparable from its misapplication.

Another great advantage of religious faith is to inculcate determinate notions of God's attributes and perfections and of the final state of man. Reason can conceive either beginning or end; it is confined to observation and induction, and the number of those who are apt to reason, is small. It is, therefore, necessary to impose to the great bulk of mankind, whatever they must believe, omit, or do.

But here lies the great stumbling block, the delicacy and difficulty to distinguish truth from error, true from false prophets, and voluntary from involuntary deceivers. The ignorant are satisfied with faith without reasoning. They commonly obey every commandment which is proposed as divine. They attach themselves more to the legislator and to the manner of communicating his will than to the excellency of his precepts. They look for miracles from those who announce the law. They are most ready to believe in that religion which promises most, and flatters the feelings of man to the greatest amount. It is obvious, therefore, why pretended ministers of God have always been, and are still interested in presenting ignorance as a virtue, and in preventing thinking people from communicating their opinions freely. As their religious interpretations do not always agree with the innate laws of intellect, it is rather convenient to interdict the exercise of reason, and unfortunately, hypocrites succeed too easily.

Reason indicates quite another course. It does not allow to any one to arrogate the right of commanding in the name of God; it commands to pay more attention to the nature of the revealed laws than to the time when, the place where, and the means by which they are made known. The precepts of Christian morality, for instance, have been and will be always the same, independently of time and place, for they are inherent in, and adapted to, the nature of man. Truth has its own intrinsic value, and does not acquire its worth from those who teach it. It may be overlooked

reason.

or not be felt by the ignorant, but it cannot be in opposition to The superior qualities of man, called Theological, for instance, cannot be given to mankind in order to gratify the selfish views of some individuals or to entail misery upon the community. Reason will admit every cognition of any immutable law, whether physical or moral, as the will of God, but it will not acknowledge any proposition contrary to the evident decrees of the Creator, nor will it pardon those who impose duties to others which they themselves neglect.

The aim of Religion.

connected with those of the Most contradictory opinions

Notions of this kind are intimately relationship between God and man. prevail amongst religious persons. This study has been and commonly still is, considered as the monopoly of a peculiar profession, and degraded to a technical phraseology. A priesthood everywhere decided about the articles of belief, and declared the terms unbeliever and immoral as synonymous. But we ought to be aware that belief cannot be forced upon man any more than physical love, attachment, benevolence or any other feeling. Religious intolerance therefore can only encourage hypocrisy. On the other hand, religious belief must be distinguished from our innate moral feelings; hence the moral and religious sentiments may act separately from each other, or in union.

Though marvellousness is an essential part of the constitution of man, religion should be ranked with other sciences and liberal researches. I think with Dr. Channing that the claims of religion on intelligent men are not yet understood, and the low place which it holds among the objects of liberal inquiry will one day be recollected as the shame of our age.' Whoever believes in the existence of God, should consider religion as the most important object of his reflections, and being personally concerned in this respect, his union with God should be left free from human authority, particularly from the spirit of those who have seized upon it as

their particular property. It is evident that all mental applications ought to be rational; is it not therefore strange that religion-the most important of human concerns-shall not admit the use of human reason, but that on this subject human understanding shall be obscured by symbolic terms and trampled upon by civil and religious governments; and that in this enlightened age, religion shall remain a technical study, disjoined from all liberal inquiries, and disfigured by errors which gathered round it in times of barbarism and ignorance?

Priesthood, it is true, does no longer lay down all the moral precepts; their power has gradually diminished, and civil governments have established a moral code independently of religious belief, so that nowadays we distinguish between civil laws and the rules of religious legislators. Who does not observe many of the pretended Christians neglect the moral precepts of their religious code, confine their religious duty to the belief in the miraculous part of Christianity, and conduct themselves according to the laws. of their civil government. Civil legislators now decide even on the value of religious systems, declare one preferable and dominant, and merely tolerate the others. They feel their rights and their duties, and endeavor to promote general order and happiness; their statutes, in fact, are wiser and more forbearing than the interpretations of revealed legislation. It is a positive historical fact that religious governments have done more mischief to mankind than civil rulers. Nay, civil governments have been and still are faulty and injurious to the commonwealth in the ratio of their interference with, or of their being guided by religious opinions. Perceiving the influence of religious ideas on mankind in general, civil rulers often unite with priests for the advantage of both parties whilst the sacerdocy commonly contend for exclusive superiority. In the actual state of things it is still impossible to prevent every kind of disorder which may result from the union of, or the contest between, civil and religious powers. Among many changes, necessary to the progress of human happiness, a religious reform is indispensable. Mischief is unavoidable so long as religion and morality are

under the direction of two distinct classes of governors, and so long as civil governments interfere with theological opinions strictly speaking. Sacerdotal supremacy must terminate, and civil governments should abstain from meddling with any religious belief which corresponds with the general order and happiness of the community. There should be no exception in the civil code. It should be the same for every member of the nation for those who sing to the glory of God, and for those who do not sing; for those who on certain days eat flesh, and for those who eat vegetables; for the rich and the poor, for the gay and the gloomy. It should have only one aim, general happiness. Whatever does not concern this, ought to be out of its province. Every marvellous conception, which neither is in opposition to general happiness, nor troubles the order of the community, should be remitted to the conscience of every believer, and every kind of Churchdom should be abandoned. Religious teachers might form a liberal profession, and their lessons should be attractive, enlivening, and above all, practical. Farther, in every religious system, its morality or the ideas which it involves respecting purity or impurity of tendencies, innocence or guilt of actions, should constitute its most important part. Religion should unite all men in peace before their Creator, but theological subtleties and technical phraseology will never produce such a desirable effect, and many generations will pass, and great changes must take place, before man arrives at that degree of perfection.

On the Improvement of Religious Notions.

It does not appear superfluous to examine whether religious notions must remain stationary, as priesthood universally maintains, or whether they vary and must vary with the different degrees of civilisation, and may improve like the functions of every other innate faculty. Common sense tells, that persons of mature age cannot feel and think like children, and that civilized and well informed people cannot be satisfied with notions that please the