In further proof that religion is not identified with the beautiful and admirable in character, I might turn. from the language in common use to actual experience........ Is religion, I ask-not the religion of poetry, but that which exists in the actual conceptions of men, the religion of professors, the religion that is commonly taught from our pulpits-is it usually regarded as the loveliest attribute of the human character? When your minds glow with the love of excellence, when you weep over the examples of goodness, is this excellence, is this goodness which you admire, religion? Consult the books of fiction, open the pages of history, resort to the stores of our classical literature, and say, if the religious man of our times appears in them at all; or if, when he does appear in them, it is he that chiefly draws your affection? Say, rather, if it is not some personage, whether of a real or fictitious tale, that is destitute of every distinctive quality of the popular religion, who kindles your enthusiasm? So true is this, that many who have held the prevailing ideas of religion, have regarded, and on their principles have justly regarded, the literature of taste and of fiction as one of the most insidious temptations that could befall them. No, I repeat, the images of loveliness that dwell in the general mind, whether of writers or readers, have not been the images of religion, And thus it has happened, that the men of taste, and of a lively and ardent sensibility, have by no means yielded their proportion of votaries to religion. The dull, the gloomy, the sick, the aged have been religious; noti. e, not to the same extent-the young. and the joyous in their first admiration and their first love; not the intellectual and refined in the enthusiasm

of their feelings and in the glory of their imagina.

tions."

But let me appeal once more to experience. I ask, then do you love religion? I ask you, I ask any one who will entertain the question-do you love religion? Does the very word carry a sound that is agreeable, delightful to you? Does it stand for something attrac tive and lovely? Are the terms that describe religion— grace, holiness, repentance, faith, godliness-are they invested with a charm to your heart, to your imagination, to your whole mind? Now, to this question I am sure that many would answer freely and decidedly, “No, religion is not a thing that we love. say that we take that sort of interest in it. We do not profess to be religious, and--honestly-we do not wish to be." What! I might answer in return-do you love nothing that is good? Is there nothing in character, nothing in attribute, no abstract charm, that you love? "Far otherwise," would be the reply. "There are many persons that we love: there are many characters in history, in biography, in romance, that are delightful to us; they are so noble, so beautiful."

We cannot

How different then, do we not see, are the ideas, of religion from the images of loveliness that dwell in many minds! They are actually the same in principle All excellence has the same foundation. There are not, and cannot be, two different and opposite kinds of rectitude. The moral nature of man, deranged though it be, is not deranged so far as to admit this; and yet how evident is it, that religion is not identified with the excellence that men love !

But I hear it said, "The images of loveliness which

l in the general mind are not indeed the images

of religion, and ought not to be; for they are false, and would utterly mislead us." Grant, now, for the sake of argument, that this were true, and whom would the admission benefit? What would follow from the admission? Why, this clearly; that of being religious, no power or possibility is within human reach. For men must love that which seems to them to be lovely. If that which seems to them to be lovely is not religion-if religion is something else, and something altogether different,—religion, it is clear, they cannot love: that is to say, on this hypothesis, they cannot be religious; they cannot, by any possi bility, but that in which all things are possible with God; they cannot by any possibility that comes within the range of the powers and affections that God has given them.

But it is not true that men's prevailing and constitutional perceptions of moral beauty are false. It is not true, that is to say, that their sense of right and wrong is false; that their conscience is a treacherous and deceitful guide. It is not true; and yet, doubtless, there is a discrimination to be made. Their perceptions may be, and undoubtedly often are, low and inadequate, and marred with error. And therefore when we use the words, excellent, admirable, lovely, there is danger that, to many, they will not mean all that they ought to mean, that men's ideas of these qualities will not be as deep, and thorough, and strict, as they ought to be; while, if we confine ourselves to such terms for religious qualities as serious, holy, godly, the danger is that they will be just as erroneous, besides being technical, barren, and uninteresting.

There is a difficulty, on this account, attending the

language of the pulpit, which every reflecting man, in the use of it, must have felt. But the truth, amidst all these discriminations, I hold to be this; that the universal and constitutional perceptions of moral loveliness which mankind entertain, are radically just. And therefore the only right doctrine and the only rational direction to be addressed to men on this subject is to the following effect: "Whatever your conscience dictates; whatever your mind clothes with moral beauty; that to you is right; be that to you religion. Nothing else can be, if you think rationally; and therefore let that be to you the religion that you love; and let it be your endeavour continually to elevate and purify your conceptions of all virtue and goodness." Nay, if I knew a man whose ideas of excellence were ever so low, I should still say to him, Revere those ideas; they are all that you can revere. The very apprehensions you entertain of the glory of God cannot go beyond your ideas of excellence. All that you can worship, then, is the most perfect excellence you can conceive of. Be that, therefore, the object of your reverence. However low, however imperfect it is, still be that to you the image of the Divinity. On that scale of your actual ideas, however humble, let your thoughts rise to higher and higher perfection.

I say, however low. And grant now that the moral conceptions of a man are very low; yet if they are the highest he has, is there anything higher that he can follow? Will it be said there are the Scriptures? But the aid of the Scriptures is already presupposed in the case. They contribute to form the very perceptions in question. They are a light to man only as they kindle a light within him. They do not, and

they cannot, mean more to any man than he understands, than he perceives them to mean. His perceptions of their intent, then, he must follow. He cannot follow the light any farther than he sees it,

But it may be said that many of the ignorant and debased see very little light; that their perceptions are very low; that they admire qualities and actions of a very questionable character. What then? You must begin with them where they are! But, let us not grant too much of this. Go to the most degraded being you know, and tell him some story of noble disinterestedness, or touching charity; tell him the story of Howard, or Swartz, or Oberlin; and will he not approve-will he not admire? Then tell him, I say— as the summing up of this head of my discourse-tell him that this is religion. Tell him that this is a faint shadow to the infinite brightness of Divine love-a feeble and marred image compared with the infinite benignity and goodness of God!

II. My next observation is, on the principles to be addressed. And, on this point, I say in general, that religion should appeal to the good in man, against the bad. That there is good in man-not fixed goodness

but that there is something good in man, is evident from the fact that he has an idea of goodness. For if the matter be strictly and philosophically traced, it will be found that the idea of goodness can spring from nothing else but experience-from the inward sense of it.

But not to dwell on this: my principal object under this head of discourse is to maintain, that religion should appeal chiefly, not to the lowest, but to the highest of our moral sentiments.