they must rest on the knowledge of an object worthy of them, and worthy of the self-sacrifice to which they prompt. Unless there be such an object, and unless it can be known, all the feeling and willing involved in religion must be delusive -must be of a kind which reason and duty command us to resist and suppress.

But religion is certainly a very large phenomenon. It is practically coextensive, indeed, with human life and history. It is doubtful if any people, any age, has been without some religion. And religion has not only in some form existed almost wherever man has existed, but its existence has to a great extent influenced his whole existence. The religion of a people colours its entire civilisation; its action may be traced on industry, art, literature, science, and philosophy, in all their stages. And the question whether there is a God or not, whether God can be known or not, is, otherwise put, whether or not religious history, and history so far as influenced by religion, have had any root in reason, any ground in fact. If there be no God, or if it be impossible to know whether there be a God or not, history, to the whole extent of its being religious and influenced by religion, must have been unreasonable. Religion might still, perhaps, be held to have done some good; and one religion might be regarded as better than another, in the sense of doing more good or less evil than

another; but no religion could be conceived of as true, nor could one religion be deemed truer than another. If there be no God to know, or if God cannot be known, religion is merely a delusion or mental disease-its history is merely the history of a delusion or disease, and any science of it possible is merely a part of mental pathology.

Further, whether Christianity be a reasonable creed or not obviously depends on whether or not certain beliefs regarding God are reasonable. If there be no God, if there be more Gods than one, if God be not the Creator and Upholder of the world and the Father of our spirits, if God be not infinite in being and perfection, in power, wisdom, and holiness, Christianity cannot possibly be a thing to be believed. It professes to be a revelation from God, and consequently assumes that there is a God. It demands our fullest confidence, on the ground of being His message; and consequently assumes that He is "not a man that He should lie," but One whose word may be trusted to the uttermost. It professes to be a law of life, and therefore assumes the holiness of its author; to be a plan of salvation, and therefore presupposes His love; to be certain of final triumph, and so presupposes His power. It presents itself to us as the completion of a progressive process of positive revelation, and therefore presupposes a heavenly

Father, Judge, and King. The books in which we have the record of this process-the books of the Old and New Testaments-therefore assume, and could not but assume, that God is, and that He is all-powerful, perfectly wise, and perfectly holy. They do not prove this, but refer us to the world and our own hearts for the means and materials of proof. They may draw away from nature, and from before the eyes of men, a veil which covers and conceals the proof; they may be a record of facts which powerfully confirm and largely supplement what proof there is in the universe without and the mind within: but they must necessarily imply, and do everywhere imply, that a real proof exists there. If what they in this respect imply be untrue, all that they profess to tell us of God, and as from God, must be rejected by us, if we are to judge and act as reasonable beings.1

For all men, then, who have religious beliefs, and especially for all men who have Christian beliefs, these questions, What evidence is there for God's existence? and, What is known of His nature? are of primary importance. The answers given to them must determine whether religion and Christianity ought to be received or rejected. There can be no use in discussing other religious questions so long as these fundamental ones. have not been thoughtfully studied and distinctly 1 See Appendix I.

answered. It is only through their investigation that we can establish a right to entertain any religious belief, to cherish any religious feeling, to perform any religious act. And the result to which the investigation leads us must largely decide what sort of a religious theory we shall hold, and what sort of a religious life we shall lead. Almost all religious differences of really serious import may be traced back to differences in men's thoughts about God. The idea of God is the generative and regulative idea in every great religious system and every great religious movement. It is a true feeling which has led to the inclusion of all religious doctrines whatever in a science which bears the name of theology (discourse about God, λόγος περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ), for what is believed about God determines what will be believed about everything else which is included either under natural or revealed religion.

In the second place, the moral issues depending on the inquiry before us are momentous. An erroneous result must be, from the very nature of the case, of the most serious character. If there be no God, the creeds and rites and precepts which have been imposed on humanity in His name must all be regarded as a cruel and intolerable burden. The indignation which atheists have so often expressed at the contemplation of religious history is

quite intelligible-quite natural; for to them it can only appear as a long course of perversion of the conscience and affections of mankind. If religion be in its essence, and in all its forms and phases, false, the evils which have been associated with it have been as much its legitimate effects as any good which can be ascribed to it; and there can be no warrant for speaking of benefits as its proper effects, or uses and mischiefs as merely occasioned by it, or as its abuses. If in itself false, it must be credited with the evil as well as with the good which has followed it; and all the unprofitable sufferings and useless privations-all the undefined terrors and degrading rites-all the corruptions of moral sentiment, factitious antipathies, intolerance, and persecution—all the spiritual despotism of the few, and the spiritual abjectness of the many-all the aversion to improvement and opposition to science, &c., which are usually referred to false religion and to superstition,-must be attributed to religion in itself, if there be no distinction between true and false in religion-between religion and superstition. In that case, belief in God must be regarded as really the root of all these evils. It is only if we can separate between religious truth and religious error-only if we can distinguish religion itself from the perversions of religion-that we can possibly maintain that the evils which have flowed from religious error, from the perversions of