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light up a glimmer of nobleness. The savage who can do little else can wonder and worship and enthusiastically obey. He who cannot know what is right can know that some one else knows, he who has no law may still have a master, he who is incapable of justice may be capable of fidelity, he who understands little may have his sins forgiven because he loves much.

Christ laid men under an immense obligation. He convinced them that he was a person of altogether transcendent greatness; one who needed nothing at their hands; one whom it was impossible to benefit by conferring riches or fame or dominion upon him, and that, being so great, he had devoted himself of mere benevolence to their good. He showed them that for their sakes he lived a hard and laborious life, and exposed himself to the utmost malice of powerful men. They saw him hungry, though they believed him able to turn the stones into bread; they saw his royal pretensions spurned, though they believed that he could in a moment take into his hand all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; they saw his life in danger; they saw him at last expire in agonies, though they believed that, had he so willed it, no danger could harm him, and that, had he thrown himself from the topmost pinnacle of the temple, he would have been softly received in the arms of ministering angels. Witnessing his sufferings and convinced that they were voluntarily endured, men's hearts were touched; and, pity for weakness blending strangely with wondering admiration of unlimited power, an agitation of gratitude, sympathy, and astonishment, such as nothing else could ever excite, sprang up in them; and when, turning from his deeds to his words, they found this very self-denial which had guided his own life prescribed as the principle which should guide theirs, gratitude broke forth in joyful obedience, self-denial produced self-denial, and the law and law-giver together were enshrined in their utmost hearts for inseparable veneration.-Prof. J. R. Seeley (Ecce Homo, pp. 66 and 50 [76 and 59]).

This universal adaptation of the faith test is quaintly mentioned by the old poet:

If bliss had lain in art or strength,

None but the wise and strong had gained it;
Where now by Faith all arms are of a length,
One size doth all conditions fit.

And this "inseparable veneration" was to be the basis of a universal religion. Mankind were one family in the heart of Christ, and must become so in the hearts of his followers. A German poet and philosopher, after a long life of observation and reflection, testifies :

The Religion which depends on reverence [Ehrfurcht, honor done without fear] for what is above us we denominate the Ethnic; it is the religion of the nations, and the first happy deliverance from a degrading fear: all Heathen religions, as we call them, are of this

sort, whatsoever names they may bear. The Second Religion, which founds itself on reverence for what is around us, we denominate the Philosophical; for the philosopher stations himself in the middle, and must draw down to him all that is higher, and up to him all that is lower, and only in. this medium condition does he merit the title of Wise. Here, as he surveys with clear sight his relation to his equals, and therefore to the whole human race, his relation likewise to all other earthly circumstances and arrangements necessary or accidental, he alone in a cosmic sense lives in Truth. But now we have to speak of a Third Religion, grounded on reverence for what is beneath us: this we name the Christian, as in the Christian religion such a temper is with most distinctness manifested: it is a last step to which mankind were fitted and destined to attain. But what a task was it, not only to be patient with the Earth, and let it lie beneath us, we appealing to a higher birthplace, but also to recognize humility and poverty, mockery and despite, disgrace and wretchedness, suffering and death,—to recognize these things as divine !— Goethe (Wilhelm Meister's Travels, chap. x., Carlyle's translation).

Religion is the human mind standing in reverence before the infinite energy of the universe, asking to be lifted into it,-opening itself to inspiration.- Christian E. Luthardt.

Religion is assent through conscience to God.-James Martineau.

And what say two leading American thinkers hereon?

As Humboldt says, "The finest fruit earth holds up to its Maker is a finished man." To ripen, lift, and educate a man is the first duty. Trade, law, learning, science, and religion are only the scaffolding wherewith to build a man. Despotism looks down into the poor man's cradle, and knows it can crush resistance and curb ill-will. Democracy sees the ballot in that baby hand; and selfishness bids her put integrity on one side of those baby footsteps and intelligence on the other, lest her own hearth be in peril. Thank God for His method of taking bonds of wealth and culture to share all their blessings with the humblest soul he gives to their keeping! The American should cherish as serene a faith as his fathers had. Instead of seeking a coward safety by battening down the hatches and putting men back into chains, he should recognize that God places him in this peril that he may work out a noble security by concentrating all moral forces to lift this weak, rotting, and dangerous mass into sunlight and health. The fathers touched their highest level when, with stout-hearted and serene faith, they trusted God that it was safe to leave men with all the rights he gave them. Let us be worthy of their blood, and save this sheet-anchor of the race-universal suffrage,- God's church, God's school, God's method of gently binding men into commonwealths, in order that they may at last melt into brothers.-Wendell Phillips (The Scholar in a Republic, p. 20).

The other leading American utterance is in the concluding discourse of Dr. James Freeman Clarke's recent series on the "Ideas of Paul":

Paul had an idea of the steady outward progress of the whole Christian community. All rested on one deep principle,-faith in Jesus as the Christ. It would not come-this growth-from science or philosophy, from conscience or reason, from circumstances or environment: it would only come from faith in this divine ideal,— Christ, the fulness of the manifestation of God.

Observe now how men seek and need ideals, in order to grow. Every man, who is making progress, does so because he is pursuing an ideal aim. Every one has some leader, master, some one who represents to his imagination the best thing he knows. Students in science have their masters, their ideal chiefs,- Humboldt or Tyndall, perhaps; students in philosophy theirs,- Plato, Aristotle, Stuart Mill; students in literature theirs,—Shakspere, Bacon, Emerson; ardent, aspiring politicians theirs. Amid the dangers of a democratic government, what a blessing that we have in this country an ideal of perfect patriotism, of pure love of country, in our Washington! He stands as an ideal of purity in public affairs, and so he is regarded by the world. So, for example, speaks Byron,

Where may the wearied eye repose

When gazing on the great?
Where neither guilty glory glows,
Nor despicable state,-

Yes, one, the first, the last, the best,—
The Cincinnatus of the West,

Whom envy dared not hate.
Bequeathed the name of Washington

To make men blush there was but one.

So, also, Macaulay testifies, speaking of Hampden: "When the vices and ignorance which the old tyranny had generated threatened the new freedom with destruction, then it was that England missed that sobriety, self-command, perfect soundness of judgment, perfect rectitude of intention, to which the history of revolutions furnishes no parallel, or furnishes a parallel in Washington alone."

What an immense disaster it would be to this nation to lose this ideal of patriotism. Suppose some destructive critic should succeed in convincing us that Washington, after all, was no better than other vulgar conquerors,- no patriot, but a self-seeker, a demagogue, a cunning partisan: could any greater misfortune than that befall our country? Such a misfortune, only infinitely greater, would befall the human race, if it could be made to appear that Jesus was not the divine ideal, the perfect man, the image of the divine goodness, truth, and love.

It was by faith in this ideal Jesus that Paul lived and worked. All his hope for human progress flowed from this faith. "Speaking the truth in love," said he, "let us grow up in all things into him who is our head, even Jesus Christ. Till we all come, in the oneness of

faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." It was not any abstract philosophic truth which Paul trusted in as the source of human progress, but truth made real in the life of Jesus; truth become a part of human experience; truth shown to be possible by one great example. This is the difference between speculative truth, which only moves the reason, and living truth, which awakens the whole soul.- Boston Saturday Evening Gazette, May 21, 1881.

No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle, pure, and good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.- Phillips Brooks.

The foregoing allusion to Macaulay recalls his lay of Horatius, which recurred to General D. McCook when facing death at Kenesaw Mountain, as told by General Garfield in an afterdinner conversation:

"Why, they were men who went into battle inspired by all the heroism of antiquity. They marched into the fight with Miltiades and Themistocles and all the heroes of history in the air above them. There was that glorious soldier, General Dan McCook; he was storming the heights of Kenesaw Mountain at the head of his troops; the summit was crowded with rebel troops; the ascent was precipitous; the troops had to lift themselves up by the bushes and branches; he knew it was almost certain death. In a momentary pause in the ascent, he was heard to utter, as if speaking to himself, but in calm, clear tones, those words from Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome:

Then outspoke brave Horatius, the captain of the gate:
"To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods?
And for the tender mother who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses his baby at her breast?"

The rough soldiers all around felt the full meaning of these words, and remembered them. A moment afterward, McCook rushed up the heights, and in two minutes fell dead

For the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods.

And now," said General Garfield, "could man die better?" I have given you the words, but I cannot give you the grand, glowing manner with which Garfield recited them.-John L. Hayes.

And Garfield himself!

And here, too, lies reason for our treasuring the sign to worship therein the thing signified,—the image of the cross, the torn banners in the rotundas of our capitols.

Brave battle-flags from wild war's bloody waves
Dashed quivering back upon Time's echoing strand,
To tell the tale of dauntless souls and true.

Here will be recalled Carlyle's remark as to hero-worship: "Religion, I find, stands upon it,—not paganism only, but far higher and truer religions, all religion hitherto known. Heroworship, heart-felt, prostrate admiration, submission, burning, boundless, for a noblest, godlike form of man,-is not that the germ of Christianity itself? The greatest of all heroes is one whom we do not name here. Let sacred silence meditate that matter: you will find it the ultimate perfection of a principle extant throughout man's whole history on earth." Whereupon George McCrie says, "Christianity stands not upon this as its mainstay: it stands upon the supernatural doctrines of justification through the blood of Christ and regeneration by the Holy Ghost.* And to a reviewer of this reviewer has this favorite predicate, "stands upon," suggested Seneca's aphorism, "Religion worships God; superstition profanes that worship." All of which recalls the more modern maxim, "Thou holdest not the root, but the root thee."

But no one will be disposed to deny that a glorious company of martyrs reflect praise on what is divinest in man; and this, too, outside the list given by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, of them that wrought righteousness through fidelity to conviction of an unseen power. Time will fail me, if I tell of Gideon, Socrates, Leonidas, the Roman sentinel at Pompeii's gate, Winkelreid, Gustav Adolphus, Latimer, Raleigh, Maynard, John Brown, and so forth.

We may admit that the reverence paid to them in former days was unreasonable and excessive; that credulity and ignorance have, in many instances, falsified the actions imputed to them; that enthusiasm has magnified their numbers beyond all belief; that, when the communion with martyrs was associated with the presence of their material remains, the passion for relics led to a thousand abuses, and the belief in their intercession to a thousand superstitions. But why, in uprooting the false, uproot also the beautiful and the true? Surely, it is a thing not to be set aside or forgotten, that generous men and meek women, strong in the strength and elevated by the sacrifice of a Redeemer, did suffer, did endure, did triumph for the truth's sake, did leave us an example which ought to make our hearts glow within us in admiration and gratitude.- Anna Murphy Jameson (Sacred and Legendary Art).

*The Religion of our Literature, p. 64.

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