cannot conceive as ever failing to interest men, and therefore as expanding with the progress of Man.

We find this in the identification of Christianity with the life of a perfect Man.

What is Christianity? Christianity is Christ-the whole of Human Nature made at one with God. Is it possible to leave that behind as the race advances ? On the contrary, the very idea supposes that the religion which has it at its root has always an ideal to present to men, and therefore always an interest for men. As long as men are men, can they ever have a higher moral conception of God than that given to them through the character of a perfect Man, and can we conceive in centuries to come men ever getting beyond that idea as long as they are in the human state? The conception of what the ideal Man is, will change, as men grow more or less perfect, or as mankind is seen more or less as a vast organism; but as long as there is a trace of imperfection in us, this idea that perfect humanity, that is, perfect fatherhood, perfect love, perfect justice-all our imperfect goodnesses-realised in perfection, and impersonated in One Being, is God to us, can never fail to create religion and kindle worship. It is the last absurdity, looking at the root ideas of Christianity, to say that it is ceasing to be a religion for the race.

The 'religion of Humanity' and the 'worship of Humanity' considered as a great and living whole, is the latest phase into which religion apart from Christianity has been thrown. I am unable to see how it differs, so far as it asserts a principle, from the great Christian idea.

Everything it says about Humanity and our duties to Humanity seems to me to be implicitly contained in Christ's teaching, and to be no more than an expansion of the original Christian idea of a divine Man in whom all the race is contained, and who is, ideally, the race. But I am far from wishing this new religious idea to be set aside as unworthy of consideration, nor do I join in the cry which has been raised against it. On the contrary, I wish it to be carefully studied, that we may get all the good out of it we can, and add many of its ideas to our present form of Christianity. Most of its positive teaching is Christian in thought and feeling, though it denies or ignores other Christian ideas which seem necessary for a human religion. It would be untrue in a Christian teacher to despise or abuse a religion which puts self-sacrifice forward as the foundation of practical duty not only among men, but among societies and nations. It would be equally untrue if I did not say that the refusal to consider the existence of a personal God, and the immortality of man, will, in the end, make that religion die of starvation.

But with regard to the special point in question-the worship of a great Being, called Humanity-there is this difference, and it is a radical one, between Christianity and the religion of Positivism, that the Humanity the latter worships is indefinite to the religious emotions, while its system is definite to the understanding. It is in this the exact reverse of Christianity, which has no system capable of being defined by the understanding, and possesses a Human Person distinctly defined for the

emotions. It is plain that, if what I have said be worth anything, the definite system in this religion will be an element of death in it and forbid its contemporaneous growth with the race. It is no matter of doubt to me, that the worship of a Humanity—which it needs an active intellectual effort to conceive, and a large knowledge of history to conceive adequately, or which secludes one sex as a special representative of its ideal,

can never stir religious emotion nor awake action based on love to it, in the mass of mankind, however much it may do so in particular persons. The general mass of men require that this ideal Man be concentrated for them into one person with whom they can have distinct personal relations, whom they can personally love for his love, and reverence for his perfection. It is not easy, knowing mankind as we do -seeing its meanness, cruelty, and weakness, as well as all its nobility-to represent it to ourselves as an object of worship, or to care particularly whether its blessing rests on us or not. Than this, it is certainly more easy to conceive as an object of worship, God, revealed in will and character by a perfect Man; and more simple to think of one Man embodying all the Race than of the whole Race as one Man. It is a more satisfying thought, to give our love to human nature as seen in Christ, without evil, full of perfect love and sympathy, both male and female in thought and feeling, than to Mankind as seen in history. It is more delightful to love men as seen in Him, for the glorious ideal they will attain to, than to love them as they are, and without a sure hope of their eternal progress; and

that the blessing of Christ's perfect Manhood and Womanhood should rest upon us, that his love, pity, strength, support and peace, should belong to us and accompany us; that He should attend us as a personal friend and interest Himself in our lives, till they reach the perfection of his life; and that He should be doing the same for all our brothers as for us;-does seem more fitted to kindle worship and stir emotion than the thought that we are parts of a vast organism which continues to live, like the body, by the ceaseless and eternal death of its parts.

It may be possible to feel a pleasure in sacrificing oneself for the good of this great Being which lives by consuming its own children, and to enjoy the thought of immortality in its continued progress without ever personally realising that immortality. But after all, this overshadowing and abstract Humanity,' which crushes us while it moves on, is not attractive, and is more likely in the end to create despair and anger than to give life to hope and love.

But the ideal Man in Christ is very different. It demands the same self-sacrifice, but it does not annihilate men. And in itself it is intensely interesting to men because it is so perfectly human. Whether men are Christians or not, that exquisite life of Christ will always attract them; so true to childhood, youth, and manhood; so simple, yet so complex; so womanly, yet so manly; in love, in honour and in truth, in noble endurance, in resolute will and purity, so ideal, yet so real to that which we feel we ought to be, or may be, that there is no possible age of the world in

the far-off future, which will not, as long as men are human, love that with the love which is worship.

So the ideal manhood which is at the root of Christianity ensures to it a power of expanding with the growth of the race; and this power is one proof at least of the eternal fitness of Christ's teaching for mankind.

The third quality in it which ensures its expansiveness is that it has directly to do with the subjects which have always stirred the greatest curiosity, awakened the profoundest thought, and produced the highest poetry in man. And these are the subjects which are insoluble by logical analysis, unknowable by the understanding:-What is God, and His relation to us? Whence have we come? whither are we going? What is evil, and why is it here? What is truth, and is there any positive truth at all? Do we die or live for ever?

It is the fashion among some to say, 'Do not trouble yourself about the insoluble;' and there are those who succeed, perhaps, in doing so.

wrong, as they think me wrong.

Well, I think them

No one feels more

intensely than I do the pain of not having things clear— the vital torment of a thirst ever renewed, and not as yet fully satisfied; but I had rather keep the pain and the thirst than annihilate, as it seems to me, a portion of my human nature. I must trouble myself about these things, and so must others, and the trouble has its source in an integral part of our human nature. We must tear away that part before we can get rid of these subjects. To deny that this part of our nature exists is absurd, to affirm that it has been produced by