which case, our Theism becomes undistinguishable from pantheism, or the identity of matter and force with Deity; and, by the substitution of necessity for will, which amounts to the elimination of the element of consciousness from the Divine nature, is still further degraded into atheism. The objection to a continuity of action, and that of a regulative and conservative character, on the part of the Author of nature, is founded on a very limited and imperfect conception of the essential qualities of an infinite and eternal Being. Whatever result of agencies now at work in the universe, or any part of it, is dependent upon an arrangement due to Omnipotence and Omniscience, whenever made, such a result is not independent of the present exercise of those attributes, inasmuch as they are the attributes of a Being to whom eternity is now, and infinity is here. No one will venture to say that elementary matter, with its properties, having been once created by the will and act of God, its conservation and development is independent of the present existence of God, and would be the same if He were not. But dependence for conservation and development upon his present existence can only mean dependence upon the present exercise of his will and power. To deny the sustaining and controlling action of God in regard to the phenomena of the universe is, therefore, in effect, to deny his existence, and so, as before, this so-called Theism is reduced to atheism.

Under neither of these systems of Theism which we have been considering can there be any moral government of mankind by God. By both, the world of mind is identified with the world of matter, being regarded as a development of it; and as, according to the first system, God is represented as being outside the world, and in no relation to it, and, according to the second, only related to it by the origination of its material elements and their forces, He takes no note nor cognizance now, and therefore will not hereafter, of the conduct of men, and exercises no more direct influence over the affairs of the moral than over the phenomena of the material world. Hence, on both theories, He is a Being the worship of whom must be without use and without object, and indeed, as a moral and spiritual act, almost inconceivable.

Another, and perhaps a still more numerous section of Theists, profess to be convinced by the order and design observable in the external world, its adaptation to the needs and capabilities of humanity, the progress, character, and results of events in the history of our race and in the lives of individuals, the aspirations, instincts and moral qualities of the human mind, and other similar reasons, that not only there is a God, one God, infinite in His perceptions, Creator and intending Cause of all things as they now are, but that He is the moral ruler of mankind, and providential dispenser of circumstances and conditions affecting human interests, and that man is accountable to God, and subject to a Divine judgment which cannot be limited to the present life, and has therefore a future destiny the character of which is to be determined by his conduct in this world. Duty to God and man is taught by conscience and reason, and enforced by hopes and fears anticipatory of future recompense and retribution. Worship is to be offered to God, and is to consist of aspirations, praise, and thanks

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giving, but not of prayer, since all things that are to happen are provided for by an unchangeable Divine plan; and improvement in our own conduct, not alteration of the will of God, is to procure us blessings here or hereafter. This religion, and all possible religion, it is asserted, has its origin in the human mind; the light of nature being sufficient to reveal it, so that there is no necessity for a supernatural revelation, or any intervention of God, to instruct us as to our belief, duties, or prospects. We may admit, as is indeed plainly affirmed by St. Paul (Rom. i. 19, 20; ii. 14, 15), that great truths concerning God, and the relation of man to God and to each other, are discoverable from the works of God and the action of conscience; and we are assured that there will be a gracious consideration and acceptance of every effort made to arrive at a knowledge of God, and to act according to the law of conscience and sense of duty. But we know, from historical research, and our present observation of mankind, that no such system of religion as that professed by this school of Theists, and represented by them to be founded on nature and reason, and capable of becoming universal, has ever kept hold of the minds of any considerable community beyond one generation, or has, in fact ever existed, except among those who have the advantage of Biblical and Christian knowledge, without being mixed up with fantastic speculations, and more or less of polytheism or pantheism. It is the religion of those ancient pagan philosophers who were not atheists, approximating, however, as theirs for the most part did not, to practical atheism by the denial of the reasonableness and efficacy of prayer. Theists of this order, like those before noticed, maintain that prayer is useless because the course of nature is so constituted that no intervention of will and power ever occurs to make that happen which otherwise would not, or to prevent that which otherwise would happen. But this opinion is plainly inconsistent with their acknowledgment of God as exercising a continuous control over the material world, and as disposing events in the character of the moral governor of mankind, and also with their admission of human responsibility, and therefore the freedom of human will. If God governs not irrespectively of the conduct of human beings whose will is free, and who owe to Him and to each other duties which it is within their choice to render or refuse, his arrangement of events, often in the material, constantly in the moral world, must adapt itself to the character and actions of the subjects of his rule. And if the Divine action may be determined in one direction or another by the course of human conduct, why may it not be so determined by the offering of human prayer, which is an act by which men alter and improve their relation to God? Similar considerations should, one would think, lead those who profess belief in a divinely ordered universe, and a divinely governed humanity, to accept at least the probability of an intervention, or, if they please to call it so, an arrangement, whereby provision may be made for the assurance of men in general, upon authority, of those moral and spiritual truths the knowledge of which by unassisted reason they must confess is limited to so few, and in the case of those few is so partial, confused, and liable to be debased by gross error. Much more is such an interposition to be deemed reasonable and neces

sary if there are truths relating to the nature of God, and to the duties and destinies of man, which it is impossible that the light of nature should reveal

to any.

The systems which have been noticed of course reject Christianity in the character of a revelation. Their advocates mostly ignore it altogether, or profess an independence of its facts and doctrines which is far from being real or even practicable. For every scheme of theistic belief, or religious sentiment and practice, professedly founded upon nature and reason only, which has been propounded since the commencement of our era, has been more or less, but always largely, indebted to Christianity for whatever has favourably distinguished it from the theistic or moral and religious systems of the ante-Christian period. But there is a form of theism very popular among the freethinkers of our time, though by no means of modern origin, which, while rejecting the Gospel as a revelation, and denying the reality of its primary and vital facts, and the truth of its distinctive doctrines, recognizes it as a power which has been developed under the moral government of God for the communication to mankind of higher, purer, and more practically efficacious knowledge of things moral and spiritual than had been previously attained. This phase of scepticism has assumed the title of Christian Theism, and claims to be at the same time the complete embodiment of natural religion, and the perfect ideal of Christianity. According to the writers of this school, Jesus of Nazareth was one of the first, perhaps the very first, of theists; "He drew much of his doctrine from his own observation of God's works;" "he has added to philosophy the principle of regarding the Supreme Mind as an object of the affections;" "the greatest minds, the richest hearts, have set no loftier aim, no truer method, than Jesus, of perfect love to God and man ;" but there was nothing superhuman in his nature, knowledge, mission, or actions; so that, to arrive at a right estimate of the character of this teacher and his doctrine, we must eliminate from the records of his life every miraculous event or deed, and from his teaching every assumption of Divine authority, of a peculiar and intimate relation to Deity, of immediate and constant communication with God, of essentially eternal existence, of the possession of a personality on which depends the salvation and eternal life of men. Such a demand is the overwhelming refutation of the theory which is compelled to make it. If we deny these and like claims made by Jesus for Himself, and made for Him by his biographers, and earliest emissaries and disciples, we destroy the very basis and substance of his mission and his teaching, and we impeach Him of an amount of deception and presumption, or fanaticism, which renders Him utterly unworthy of credit as a teacher of truth and morality. There will, in this case, be more to repudiate and condemn in the positive statements and requirements of Him who is acknowledged to be the best and wisest and truest of teachers, than in the concessions to the popular polytheism and mythology which we find in the language of the theists of paganism. If we accept the Theism of Jesus, we must accept it in its entirety. We cannot detach from it the propositions which give it its distinguishing character and meaning, and in which, the experience of ages has

proved, consist its vitality and power. Christian Theism which has not Christ personally for its subject-Christ as manifestation of Deity, as redeemer, advocate, king, and judge-is a contradiction in terms, a paradox, the attempt to hold or teach which must issue in the rejection of both Christianity and Theism.

There are many other theistic theories afloat in our time, almost as many as there are writers on the subject, for hardly one of these agrees with any other, nor has any one of them founded a distinct school, or become the head of a considerable following. But, however eccentric and idiosyncratic may be the articles of any theistic creed, it may in principle be readily referred to one or other of the four systems which have been described and briefly discussed. They are all formed upon the presumptuous assumption that human consciousness and human reason are a sufficient, and indeed the only source, from which to derive a knowledge of the being and attributes of God, and a correct estimate of the nature, extent, course, and object of Divine action. As has been shewn, although scarcely more than suggestively, each of these theories may be combated and defeated on its own ground. But the most satisfactory and the surest refutation of error is the establishment of truth. The Theism of the Scriptures, the really Christian Theism, presents itself to us with credentials such as no other system can claim. Embodied in writings which are the ancient inheritance of an ancient nation, it derives from their investigation a firm external support, and by means of them exhibits in all its phases, from the earliest to the latest, from the patriarchal to the apostolical, perfectly consistent views of the Divine character, and of the relation of God to the material universe and the moral and spiritual world, as well as of the all-important subjects of sin and evil, of law and responsibility, of pardon and punishment, on which the teaching of every other form of religion, or of theistic philosophy, is confused, hesitating, and self-contradictory. By an exhaustive process of comparison with these other systems, it is seen to be alone free from the contamination of polytheism and pantheism which vitiates and condemns those of the ancient world, and from the tendencies and affinities which connect those of modern date with both pantheism and atheism. But by far the most convincing argument for its universal and exclusive acceptance is found in the historic evidence for the grand facts on which it is based, and in which it is involved-evidence as complete and conclusive as any that can be adduced in proof of the occurrence of the greatest events of ancient and modern times. Thus accredited, Biblical, culminating in Christian, Theism, supplies the deficiencies and corrects the errors of the Theisms founded only upon human consciousness and human reason. The Theism of nature, the Theism of philosophy, the Theism of science may each of them, teach much that is true concerning God. They cannot, all of them together, teach ALL that we need to know concerning Him. the real, and comprehensive, and assured knowledge of His character and attributes, and His re lations to man, as far as the communication of such knowledge is possible in our present state, we must depend solely upon the Theism of revelation.

For

brought me once again to the railway route, where I was to take the train for the south. At St. Nectaire there are also thermal springs and an établissement. The village is double, so to speak, one part lying amid fair meadows, the other crowning a rugged hill; the extremes of wildness and of beauty which characterise this neighbourhood being brought together at one view. Verrières is next passed, a place remarkable for one of the most curious basaltic monuments of the district, la Roche longue, a single dark pillar left standing while the erosive action

softer material in which it was once imbedded. The road now plunges into an alpine glen, bordered on one side by forests of beech and fir, on the other by a roaring torrent and rocky precipices. Then, on ascending a hill, a farewell view of the whole volcanic range of Auvergne is obtained, with the valley between; the Puy de Dôme and Mont Dore being both included in the prospect. The road now descends to Perrier, beneath the ruined hill-tower of Maurifolet, and thence by a road bordered with poplars to the little station at Issoire, whence I