and such an emotion must be equivalent to a sense of deity."" This is, clearly, reasoning in a circle. We are first to place ourselves in the presence of infinity, eternity, and omnipotence' (which we cannot do otherwise than as we form conceptions of them), and then the accompanying state of emotion will be one which implies the existence of the infinite, the eternal, and the omnipotent-that is, of God. Of course it will; but this is only saying, that we must conceive of God in the first instance, and then derive our conception of him out of the emotion which the conception of him has produced.

We are, we confess, far from being convinced that the sense of dependence can give origin to the sense of deity. Mr. Morell admits that in order to do so the sense of dependence must become absolute'; and we do not see how it is to become absolute but in the presence of the absolute, or the divine, already conceived. To this theory of religion, however, we have many other objections than that it is not proven.' It seems to us altogether inadequate to account for the universal characteristics of the religious life. Very unsatisfactory to us is the following statement:

'What we mean is this:-that the sense of dependence accompanying all our mental operations gives them the peculiar hue of piety. Thinking alone cannot be religious; but thinking, accompanied by a sense of dependence on the infinite reason, is religious thought. Activity alone cannot be religious; but activity, carried on under a sense of absolute dependence upon infinite power, is religious action. In a word, it is this peculiar mode of feeling pervading all our powers, faculties, and inward phenomena, which gives them a religious character.'Morell, p. 78.

This appears to us to be an extremely superficial and unreal view of the religious development of humanity, even in its lowest and most degraded forms, and a totally inadequate account of its higher and more exalted aspects. We think also that the representation is superficial under the guise of being profound. The peculiar essence' of religion, we are to believe, is the sense of dependence,' and this because the sense of dependence gives origin to the sense of deity.' It is, then, after all, the sense of deity, and not the sense of dependence, which is the peculiar essence of religion, the sense of dependence serving no other purpose in this theory than to supply a source from whence the sense of deity may be derived. And we see not why Mr. Morell, and ourselves as inquirers after the same element, may not be contented to rest at this point, and to say that the religious element in man is the sense of deity; or, in other words, that the conception of God is the origin and basis of all those excitements and developments of human nature which are called religious. It is their relation to this great and dominant conception which gives to all such developments their peculiar character as religious; it is their common relation to this conception which gives to religious developments, of various and contrasted aspects, their character of fundamental unity; and it is the wonderful variety of forms into which this primary conception may be modified which accounts for the wide diversity of

** Morell, p. 77. The italics in this extract are Mr. Morell's.

religious manifestation. Now this conception of God, or, as Mr. Morell phrases it, this sense of deity,' we know to have in man's heart universally a profound place, and a more or less commanding and inextinguishable influence.

The desire of pushing inquiry further than this (and further, perhaps, than it can be pushed), has led many philosophical writers to speculate on the question, how the idea of God enters into the mind of man. So we have just seen Schleiermacher, and after him Morell, as we judge, altogether without success. A writer of a very different stamp has taken a different view of the question, on which we mean to offer a few remarks.

We have no intention at present to take any general notice of the interesting and important volume to which we refer, beyond expressing our warm concurrence in the eulogies it has already received from the critical press. We notice only the first section of the Introduction, which the author devotes entirely to examining the sources of our idea of God.' Entering somewhat at large into this subject, he enumerates the following:

'First,-There is the design exhibited in the separate material works of God. Secondly,-There are the relations which the physical world bears to man, which we call the providential arrangements of the Divine government.

Thirdly,-There is the human soul, with its consciousness, its intelligence, and its benign feelings.

Fourthly,―There are the moral qualities of man.

'Now such seem to be the four natural sources from which the human mind derives its idea of the Divine Being. . . . Each class of objects furnishes its quota of evidence. The physical works of God give indications of power and skill. The providence of God exhibits a governing and controlling energy. Our spiritual natures lift us up to the conception of a living, a personal, and spiritual God. . . . These three classes of objects, as bringing before us nature, animate and inanimate, establish the benevolence as well as the wisdom of God.. . . . Still, when it has reached this point, and combined these three classes of phenomena, the human mind is not satisfied, for it feels that there must be much in the character of God on which these objects cast little or no light. . . . The mind feels as if it must have left some element out of calculation; nor will it rest satisfied till, by the aid of the moral law in the heart (being the fourth object), it rises to the contemplation of a God who loves virtue and hates vice.' -M'Cosh, pp. 2-12.

...

We have a general feeling of dissatisfaction with this representation, on several grounds, which we will briefly specify.

In the first place, we think the whole inquiry misdirected; that is, directed to an inappropriate and impossible object. Mr. M'Cosh professes to open to us the sources from which our idea of God is actually derived. He assumes, then, hypothetically, the case of a man in whom the idea of God does not yet exist, in order to trace him in the actual derivation of it from the sources he enumerates. Such a case, however, is not possible, either in fact or in imagination. Not in fact, because all men, from the progenitor of the race to the latest of his posterity, have received, and will receive, the idea of God in a different method, namely, by direct instruction, that is, by being in

* M'Cosh on the Moral Government of God.

some way or other told of it. Not in imagination, because the man who strives to imagine it is disqualified for the attempt by himself having received from tradition the idea in question. The first man received the idea of God, no doubt, from some direct manifestation of God himself; and all other men have received it one from another. An inquiry, consequently, into the way in which men actually do acquire the idea of God we regard as altogether futile. The result of it, as in this case, can be nothing more than a demonstration that, if we had not already such a conception, there are phenomena around us and within us which would have justified, and perhaps have suggested it.

In the second place, the process indicated is far too protracted and laborious to be satisfactorily taken as that by which the idea of God is generally arrived at, even if some such process were admitted to be requisite. Any one of our readers who will take the trouble to reperuse the passage we have quoted, and to go through, in as nearly a practical manner as he may, the respective arguments indicated in it-and still more, any one who will read the arguments themselves as expanded in the section from which we have taken it-will find, we think, that the conducting of them involves a process of ratiocination far more extended and complex than can be supposed to have taken place in the minds of mankind at large. In truth, to say nothing of the incapacity of a very large portion of our race at the maturest period of their lives for such an operation, the idea of God manifestly takes its proper place, and exerts its full influence, in the minds of the young -even of children-long before anything like such a process can be supposed to be possible.

In the third place, we do not think the argumentation employed by any means satisfactory in itself. In various parts it is, in our judgment, inconclusive. For example, the author relies on nature animate and inanimate,' to establish the benevolence of God, and he culls a few samples, undoubtedly sufficiently beautiful: yet we are conscious while we read them that they are not samples; but that there is a wide world of physical evil, which he is pleased for his purpose to ignore, but which, broadly and fairly viewed, makes the inferring of God's benevolence from the works of nature a matter of no little difficulty. Again, he says that it is our own spiritual nature that lifts us up to the conception of a living, a personal, and a spiritual God;' a conception with which we are to connect previously formed ideas of power and skill, as indicated by the works of nature. It strikes us, however, that the indications of power and skill in the works of nature contribute their quota to the idea of God, only on the supposition that there is a previous conception of a personal being with whom they may be identified. And, to take a third instance, the author relies upon man's natural conscience to prove the holiness of God, forgetting that man's conscience has become, to a vast extent, so defiled and blinded as to associate his own deepest pollutions with his conceptions of deity. In the last place, it appears to us that Mr. M'Cosh substantially

gives up his own scheme, by a passage which we will now extract. After giving his view of the human conscience, he says:

'Now the conscience is a ready and powerful means of suggesting the idea of God to the mind. We believe that it is by it, rather than by any careful observation of nature, material or spiritual, that mankind have their thoughts directed to God. It is not so much by what he has around him, as by what he feels within, that man is led to believe in a ruler of the world.'-M'Cosh, p. 8.

Why, as comparing the four alleged sources of evidence among themselves, we think so too; and this reduces the practical operation of the other three to a very small amount, even if any influence at all be excited by them.

This, however, after all, is not our real view of the matter. Conscience is itself, in our judgment, indebted for all its real power to instruction. What man would be uninstructed, there have been, happily, but very small means of knowing, and what has been deducible from a few melancholy facts has tended little to elevate our idea of what may be expected from his untaught powers. Conscience is no doubt a primitive faculty of the human mind-a susceptibility of excitement by moral conceptions, or conceptions of right and wrong; and, such conceptions being given, it acts, but it waits for the communication of them-that is, for instruction. In like manner, there is in man a primitive faculty of religion, as well as of morals-that is, a susceptibility of excitement by the conception of God; but it waits for that conception to be communicated by instruction. Tell a child about God, and the conception at once finds a place within him, and is thenceforth as a part of his very nature. His susceptibility to the influence of this idea is his capacity for religion; and his conception of God, or, in Mr. Morell's language, his sense of deity,' is the fundamental sentiment, or conception, which constitutes the origin and basis of his religious life, in whatever form it may be developed.

We cannot tell whether it may seem unsatisfactory to our readers that we have thus detached the conception of God in the human mind from the sources to which it has ordinarily been referred, and ascribed it to a different one; yet this we may say, in conclusion, that our scheme certainly harmonizes with the methods of Divine Providence. As God did not throw the first man into the world untaught, so neither was it any part of his plan that any one of his descendants should come into existence apart from the process of instruction. The parental relation, which benignantly provides for the physical wants of the new generation, provides no less benignantly for their intellectual and religious wants. Every parent communicates to his children his own ideas of God, as he does of other things; and thus from a living source is this great conception perpetuated in the world. We know of none besides that is really in action, and we can conceive of none that could be so prompt, so facile, and so effectual.

19

A Sabbath Meditation.

'Rest awhile.'-Our Saviour to his Disciples.

'Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.'

Book of Proverbs.

OUR Sundays are resting stages in the journey of life. And we rest as upon a little hill, where we can look a short way forward and backward, see the open sky, breathe a pure air, and mark quietly what lies around us. Here we are cheered by meeting with fellow-travellers, who are resting like ourselves. The hills on which we thus rest vary in elevation, but we may be always high enough for our view to be greatly widened, and for us to gain a truer general conception of the country through which we are moving. 'Now are we glad because we be quiet.' We rest from our labours; and we sanctify the work of our hands' by thoughts of its importance and its hopefulness. And as one beholding the glorious company of all the bright lights of heaven, first may feel as nothing by contrast with such greatness, and then immediately may rejoice in his dignity because of his true relationship thereto, for he also is a son of the Lord of glory-so on our Sundays, in presence of heavenly truths and commandments, first we may say, What are we, and What can we do? and then rejoice that we are God's sons, and Christ's brothers; that the first of us dwelt in Paradise, and that our race was redeemed on Calvary.

Our day of rest is both a solemn and a joyful day; we think of the trouble and the hope of the world's wayfarers, and our remembrance is of creation and redemption. The finished creation complete, and in all parts good, affords us material type of the perfect spiritual earth and heavens that one day shall be. But our Sabbath is the Lord's day-the day of Him who triumphed gloriously, yet was a man of sorrows. The most joyful tidings ever proclaimed to man are the tidings of life through Him who arose and was glorified after first he had been crucified. Rejoice in the resurrection of the Lord, and in the life eternal by him obtained and declared-but, he suffered and died that he might rise. The joy of the morning came after the long and fearful night of sorrow and pain. The greatest of all facts is the greatest of all symbols. Redemption achieved by death is the symbol of glory that shall grow, and is ever growing, out of suffering for the truth. And when our day of spiritual rest is also a day of natural beauty, then specially does the ever-silent earth in its perfection prophetically announce the marvels of eternity.

Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? God-he only. Who can bring light out of darkness? He also, none else. Did he not bring order out of chaos? And what shall he not do with the world