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received religious homage from the civilised world. It might be thought that the force of corruption 'could no farther go'. But when once the best and strongest feelings of our nature are turned in a wrong direction, there is no fatuity of which they are not capable. Imitating the worst part of Heathenism, those who called themselves Christians proceeded to make dead men and women into demi-gods, whom they worshipped under the name of saints, and to propound to the world, and enforce on its reception, the most astounding of all absurdities, namely, that He who formeth the wind, keepeth the planet in his orbit, circumscribeth all space, and sustaineth the universe, was in some way transmuted into a wafer, and swallowed by his own creatures, and that not in one, but in ten thousand parts of this tiny globe.

If the Judaical element of corruption furnished what could not fail to wound the heart, Paganism surely gave forth enough either to confound and blind the intellect, or to call forth all its energies in active and determined hostility. And well can I imagine that an unbeliever of an ingenuous disposition, would feel that a regard at once to the Creator of the Universe and to his fellowcreatures required him to employ his utmost efforts against their united corruptions in credulity, superstition, and absurdity. And could he be justified in allowing these external clouds of the religion of Christ from concealing from his sight and his heart the light and warmth of 'the sun of righteousness', I for one should be disposed rather to applaud than to blame his zeal. Nor can I well conceive how such a system can either merit or receive a defence, except on the erasure of the fundamental principles of human reason, and the extinction of the strongest and best charities of the human heart. It is therefore with a sacred gratification I rejoice that the religion of Jesus has begun to work itself free from

these lees of Jewish and Pagan corruptions. The bright original, I have the holiest warrants for saying, will be restored; and of this we may be the more assured, because, though the costly pearl has been hidden in a mass of rubbish has been marred and polluted, it has never been lost. The religion of Christ still exists in the world in the midst of surrounding defilements, diminished and most lamentably curtailed of its influence, yet not essentially changed. For we may be satisfied, that the corruptions to which I have alluded could never have maintained an empire in the human breast, had they not been associated with a holy and benevolent power. And I confess, that while the unbeliever derides Christianity on account of the corruptions with which it is blended, I can find no language to express the admiration I feel in considering the strength of counteraction which the good principle must have exerted, to prevent these powers of evil from exciting a universal revolt in the Christian world. But age after age men have found in Christianity a supply for their most urgent wants, a source of improvement which conduced greatly to their happiness; and therefore, notwithstanding its corruptions, they have firmly held it in their embrace. In this strong sense of its worth, this vividly-felt experience, has been the conservative power of the Christian religion; and but for this, the load with which human weakness and folly have burdened it, would long ere now have sunk it as lead in the ocean. The little leaven has leavened the whole lump with a title to man's regard and reverence.

The work, therefore, of the religious reformer is not to destroy a prevalent Christianity, but to cleanse it from existing impurities; and in his righteous efforts he has the invaluable aid of the divine original, as preserved in the histories of Christ. Let us, for a brief period, turn our thoughts to that original, in order to seize, if we

may, the fundamental idea of the religion of Jesus. What was his object, and what his means? I shall not dwell on any subordinate or secondary purposes, but endeavour to present the leading idea, the master thought, which animated the mind of Christ, and inspired and shaped his life. And when stript of all the casual associations of time, place and language, that idea seems to me to be this-to effect a great moral reform, which, taking its rise in individual excellence of character, should act beneficially on society, and lead on to, and eventuate in, the pure spiritual happiness of a life to come. These several effects were contemplated by Jesus as the great work he had to do, and they stood in his mind not as insulated and dissimilar results, but as parts of one connected whole, as links in the chain which bound social good with individual excellence, and the bliss of eternity with the happiness of time. In his mind there was no moral gulf between heaven and earth; nor did he teach that those would be saved hereafter, who had been sensual, unjust, or cruel here. With him, the whole of each one's being was a transition, a gentle passage from a life of sense (which, to a moral being, is rather death than life) to a life of pure and never-ending spirituality.

And here, before I proceed on this topic, I would, in order to prevent misapprehension, remark that I use the terms spirit and spirituality, to denote that state of the mind in which the intellectual and moral powers are raised to their highest pitch of refinement, and kept in harmonious and vigorous action by the presiding influence of the love of God within the breast, whether the result take place in this world, where its existence can be only partial, or in the next, where the education of each human being will be completed.

The great aim, then, of Jesus Christ was a new moral creation, with a view to the universal prevalence of

the highest happiness of man. In his own language, he came that we might have life, and that we might have it exceeding abundantly. Presenting himself as the light of the world, he aimed to dissipate the moral darkness of the human mind, and thereby to bring about the dismissal from the breast of all the idolatries of sense, in order that the faculties, being quickened by the rays of truth, might come forth purified from the dross of earth, in full and well-proportioned energy. The life, then, which Jesus purposed to give, was the kindling up of all the faculties of man, and the preservation and expansion of them to their highest possible reach throughout the period of endless being. The true life of man is in the ascendancy of the higher powers of his nature,—his reason, his moral feelings, those sympathies which make him rich within in the elements of happiness, and unite him in bonds of love and holiness with his fellow-creatures and his Creator; and the advancement of that moral supremacy, the subjugation of sense, and of all the lower passions which lead on to intellectual and moral death; and the completion of this great work in the formation of the human heart, after the image of God, man's will being blended with the will of his Maker, and his life made a steady out-going of the divine influence,-such was the one great purpose and effort of the life and teachings of Christ. In other words, he came to repress and annihilate the bad in human nature, and to call forth, strengthen, and perfect the good. He was the great moral educator, differing from other educators in the exent of his aims, and the power of his instrumentality, but having, like them, for his object, the improvement of mankind.

Now it must be carefully noticed that Jesus began his work with individuals. He knew that thus only could he lay a basis for a solid and durable reform. To begin with masses and communities' may present a more imposing exterior, but must, in the main, end in dis

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appointment. The social whole is made up of its several parts, in such a way that the character of the whole is but an aggregate of the character of the parts; and until you have reformed individuals, you cannot reform societies. And no influence which you may attempt to exercise on masses, can be carried into effect with certainty, and will most probably fail in the majority of cases, because it cannot be varied so as to meet the peculiar wants of each individual. Besides, all such influence must, for the most part, be of an external nature; springing from without, and operating from without, it can touch but slightly the springs of our moral life. All genuine power for human reformation must be in-born. The quickening principle may be exterior, the life itself must be within. You may

effectually deal with masses, when you use men as mere machines for labour or for war; but if you would bring about a 'New Moral World,' you must, as Jesus did, begin with individuals.

And in so beginning, it was to the inner man he directed his attention. This is a marked feature in the religion of Jesus, necessitated by the nature of the effect he designed to produce, which was not a mere conformity to any outward standard, still less, as with Socialists, the developement of the animal nature, but the regeneration of the heart, the calling forth and invigoration of its elements of moral and everlasting life. The purpose which he labored to effect was, to make each individual a law to himself, by leading him to the possession of a clean heart, a right spirit, a holy will, a deep respect for the noble capacities of his nature, and the high destiny which lay before it. He could not, therefore, remain satisfied with any external proprieties, but addressed his influences at once to the understanding and the affections, assured if these were only in a healthful and vigorous condition, the life could not fail to be right, nor the highest happiness, both corporeal and mental, to be

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