thus grow in the vigour of virtue, than to preserve them from such struggle, and thus allow them to remain weak.

But, my friends, let us rejoice that, after proving the divine perfection, we know enough for our peace as to the origin of evil. It is not at all necessary to establish the soundness of any of these conjectures, for none of them are needed to prove that God is perfect.

In the heavens of the soul there rise unquenchable constellations, which assert that we alone are to blame if we do what conscience says we ought not to do. We are just as sure of the fact that we, and only we, are to blame when we do what conscience pronounces wrong, as we are of our own existence. Our demerit is a self-evident fact. All men take such guilt for granted. We know that we are responsible, as surely as we all know that we have the power of choice. We know both facts from intuition. Our existence we know only by intuition, and by that same axiomatic evidence we know our freedom. How does sin originate in us? By bad free choice. Just so it originated in the universe. But God brought us into existence. Yes, and he maintains us in existence. Very well; but the axioms of self-evident truth prove that he has given to us free will. The ocean floats the piratical vessels, the sea-breeze fills the sails of the pirate; but neither the ocean nor the sea-breeze is to blame for piracies.

THEODORE PARKER ON THE PERFECTION OF THE

DIVINE NATURE.

BY THE REV. JOSEPH COOK.

WHEN Ulysses sailed past the isle of the Sirens, who had the power of charming by their songs all who listened to them, he heard the sorcerers' music on the shore, and, to prevent himself and crew from landing, he filled their ears with wax, and bound himself to the mast with knotted thongs. Thus, according to the subtile Grecian story, he passed safely the fatal strand. But when Orpheus, in search of the Golden Fleece, went by this island, he-being, as you remember, a great musician-set up better music than that of the Sirens, enchanted his crew with a melody superior to the alluring song of the sea-nymphs, and so, without needing to fill the Argonauts' ears with wax, or to bind himself to the mast with knotted thongs, he passed the sorcerous shore not only safely, but with disdain.

The ancients, it is clear from this legend, understood the distinction between morality and religion. He who, sailing past the island of temptation, has enlightened selfishness enough not to land, although he wants to; he who, therefore, binds himself to the mast with knotted thongs, and fills the ears of his crew with wax; he who does this without hearing a better music, is the man of mere morality. Heaven forbid that I should underrate the value of this form of cold prudence, for wax is not useless in giddy ears, and Aristotle says youth is a perpetual intoxication. Face to face with Sirens, thongs are good, though songs are better.

When a man of tempestuous, untrained spirit must swirl over amber and azure and purple seas, past the isle of the Sirens, and knots himself to the mast of outwardly-right conduct by the thongs of safe resolutions, although as yet duty is not his delight, he is near to virtue. He who spake as never mortal spoke saw such a young man once, and, looking on him, loved him; and yet said, as the nature of things says also, "One thing thou lackest." Evidently he to whom duty is not a delight does not possess the supreme pre-requisite of peace. In presence of the Siren shore we can never be at rest while we rather wish to land, although we resolve not to do so. Only he who has heard a better music than that of the Sirens, and who is affectionately glad to prefer the higher to the lower good, is, or in the nature of things can be, at peace. Morality is Ulysses bound to the mast. Religion is Orpheus listening to a better melody, and passing with disdain the sorcerous shore.

Aristotle was asked once what the decisive proof is that a man has acquired a good habit. His answer was, "The fact that the practice of the habit involves no self-denial of predominant force among the faculties." Assuredly that is keen, but Aristotle is rightly called the surgeon. Until we do love virtue so that the practice of it involves no self-denial of that sort, it is scientifically incontrovertible that we cannot at be peace. In the very nature of things, while Ulysses wants to land, wax and thongs cannot give him rest. In the very nature of things, only a better music, only a more ravishing melody, can preserve Orpheus in peace. This truth may be stern and unwelcome, but the Greek mythology and the Greek philosophy which thus unite to affirm it are as luminous as the noon. What is the distinction between morality and religion, and how can the latter be shown by the scientific method to be a necessity to the peace of the soul?

1. Conscience demands that what ought to be should be chosen by the will.

2. In relation to persons, what we choose we love.

3. Conscience reveals a Holy Person, the Author of the moral law. 4. Conscience, therefore, demands that rightness and oughtness in motives should not only be obeyed, but loved.

5. It demands that the Ineffable Holy Person revealed by the moral law should not only be obeyed, but loved.

6. This is an unalterable demand of an unalterable portion of our nature.

7. As personalities, therefore, we must keep company with this part of our nature and with its demand, while we exist in this world and the next.

8. The love of God by man is, therefore, inflexibly required by the nature of things. Of all the commandments of exact science this is the first, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind, and might, and heart, and strength.

9. Conscience draws an unalterable distinction between loyalty and disloyalty to the Ineffable Holy Person the moral law reveals, and between the obedience of slavishness and that of delight.

10. Only the latter is obedience to conscience.

11. But morality is the obedience of selfish slavishness.

That sounds harsh, but by it I mean only that a man of mere morality is Ulysses bound with thongs. He intelligently chooses not to land, but he wishes to do so. He loves what conscience declares ought not to be. His chief motive is selfishness acting under the spur of fear. In the nature of things, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but the end of wisdom is the perfect love that casteth out fear. You say that I have been appealing to fear. Very well, that is

the beginning of wisdom, and I do not revere highly any love of God that has never known any fear of God. Show me that kind of love of God which has not felt what the fear of God is, and I will show you not principle, but sentiment; not religion, but religiosity. Of necessity, loyalty fears disloyalty. But loyalty is love for the Holy Person the moral law reveals, and such love conscience inexorably demands as what ought to be.

12. Religion, as contrasted with morality, is the obedience of affectionate gladness. It is the proud, rejoicing, unselfish, adoring love which conscience demands of man for the Ineffable Holy Person which conscience reveals.

13. As such, only religion, and not morality, can harmonize the soul with the nature of things. So much may be clearly demonstrated by exact research. Shakespeare says of two characters who conceived for each other a supreme affection as soon as they saw each other :

"At the first glance they have changed eyes.”

The Christian is a man who has changed eyes with God. In the unalterable nature of things, he who has not changed eyes with God cannot look into his face in peace. What is that love which conscience says ought to be given by the soul to the Ineffable Holy Person which the Moral Law reveals? Is it love for a fragment of that Person's character, or for the whole? For a few, or for the whole list of his perfect attributes ?

14. In the nature of things a delight in not only a part, but in all of God's attributes, is necessary to peace in his presence.

15. A religion consisting in the obedience of affectionate gladness, or a delight in all God's attributes, is, therefore, scientifically known to be a demand of the nature of things. It will not be to-morrow or the day after that these fifteen propositions will cease to be scientifically certain. Out of them multitudinous inferences flow as Niagaras from the brink of God's palm. In a better age, Philosophy will often pause to listen to these deluging certainties poured from the Infinite Heights of the nature of things. The roar and spray of them almost deafen and blind whoever stands where we do now; but they are there, although we are deaf; they are there, although we are blind. Three inferences from these fifteen propositions are of supreme importance :

1. It is a sufficient condemnation of any scheme of religious thought to show that it presents for worship not all, but only a fragment, of the list of the Divine attributes.

2. A religion that is true to the nature of things in theory will, of of course, be found to work well in practice. The true in speculation

is that which is harmonious with the nature of things. The fortunate in experience is that which is in harmony with the nature of things. The true in speculation, therefore, will turn out to be the fortunate in experience when applied to practice. If a scheme of thought does not work well in the long ranges of experience, if it will not bear translation into life age after age, that scheme of thought is sufficiently shown to be in collision with the nature of things.

3. By all the tests of intuition, instinct, experiment, and syllogism, religious science must endeavour to obtain the fullest view possible to man of the whole list of the Divine attributes. What scheme of religious thought will bear these three tests best? All religious teaching that in a wide and multiplex trial does not bear good fruits, is presumably out of accord with the nature of things. Does the doctrine that every fall is a fall upward bear good fruits? Does the assertion that sin is a necessary, and, for the most part, an inculpable stage in human progress, improve society? Does the proposition that character does not tend to a final permanence, bad as well as good, and good as well as bad, work well when translated into life, age after age ?

The supreme question, then, if you are convinced that man cannot have peace unless he has a delight in all attributes of the Holy Person revealed by the moral law, is to know what the full list is.

1. In the nature of things, to work for good is to work against evil. Does anybody doubt this? Is not that a proposition just as clearly true as that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, or that a thing cannot be, and not be at the same time and in the same sense as any other intuitive deliverance of our faculties?

2. In the nature of things God cannot work for good without working against evil. I am assuming only that God cannot deny himself. That cannot is to me at once the most terrible and the most alluring certainty in the universe. He cannot deny the demands of his own perfections. These are another name for the nature of things. We feel sure that in the nature of things there cannot be a here without a there, an upper without an under, or any working of God for good without working by him against evil. The nature of things is not fate, but the unchangeable free choice of infinite perfection in God.

Allow no one to mislead you by overlooking the distinctions between certainty and necessity, will and shall, occasioning and necessitating, infallibly certain and inevitably certain. Let no one assert that faithfulness to self-evident truths as to the nature of things leads to a system of thought consisting of adamantine fatalism. There can