While the paucity of cultivated men in the Church is a theme of pious exultation, "lest any flesh glory," at the same time even in Paul, noble and heart-stirring as his moral tone is, we cannot but see that he is far quicker to denounce and threaten unbelief, than to meet doubts with patient candour. This element reigns through nearly all the New Testament. I gladly except the Epistle of James, which is almost free from dogmatic elements, and wish to believe that in this respect also he represents Jesus to us. Yet Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree in ascribing to Jesus haughty denunciation, where it appears least justified. It is not practically possible to reach a Christianity in which intellectual doubt was kindly welcomed and candidly satisfied. It is always treated as a sin, and easy faith magnified as a high merit. This, I apprehend, is the fatal fact which ensured corruptions through the triumph of credulity in the Church.

Fancy and folly, bad logic and blundering, haste and love of the marvellous, are ever at work to deform every oral tradition, and pervert the interpretation of whatever is written. The only check upon their inroads lies in keen and jealous criticism. To commend easy belief as a virtue, and frown on slowness to believe as a dishonour to God, was certain to entail illimitable error, burying out of sight the original doctrines. If easy belief in a newlyannounced marvel is meritorious to-day, so will it be to-morrow, so will it be next year: hereby a premium is offered for a harvest of lies. From the beginning, the merit of believing things wonderful was distinctly proclaimed; in the third century it was frankly applied to believing things incredible. The reasoning faculty, unless kept in constant exercise, withers as certainly as the hand or the arm. While we approach God mentally, or seek moral edification devoutly, argumentation is lulled to sleep: hence if devotion absorb the mind wholly, free intellect gets no play. To foster criticism is the only sure way of holding fast attained truth, not to speak of advancing to new truth. To scold down free thought prepares the corruption of a religion by weakening the mind of the votaries. When Infallibility is ascribed to any set of enunciations and statements, every flaw in a noble discourse becomes its most admired feature, and is most insisted on, because it is difficult to believe,-because it mortifies "that beast Reason," to use Luther's vehement phrase. The doctrine of Infallibility, which is the head and front of Popery, is but the consolidation of the authoritative tone of teaching which was originally made a supplement to defective argument. It is a

familiar thought, that if the earth, without human labour, bore to us, as in a fabled Paradise, milk and honey, fruits and crops, clothes and shelter, our bodies would be enfeebled by laziness and inaction. Just so do our minds become torpid and weak, when truth is guaranteed to us authoritatively. Infallibility, whether in a Church or in a Book, such as shall supersede criticism of the things asserted, is as little to be desired, and as little to be expected, in Theology as in Morals or Politics. No form of Christianity has shaken off its incrustations of error, except where Free Science has arisen to exercise and brace the spirit of criticism. The noble moralities of the New Testament will stand out more admirable and more valuable, when surrounding error is purged away: but until this work of criticism is performed, and the dogmatic principle disowned, the spiritual and moral will continue to be drowned in the ecclesiastical. Depravation and schism, anathema and recrimination, must be expected in the future, as in the past.

THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT PRAYER.

SOME

[1873.]

OME have said that religious knowledge is not progressive: with about as much truth we might say that medical knowledge is not progressive. On each topic mankind has made enormous errors, and on each is still very far from a sound and satisfactory state; yet on each it has left many errors far behind. Primitive theology is man's interpretation of the outer world which he perceives; and his interpretation is largely influenced by his consciousness and his emotions. Enlarged and improved knowledge of the universe almost necessarily modifies theology, as does the improved moral culture of nations. Religion therefore (in its popular sense of "thought concerning God"), unless artificially stereotyped by nationally established creeds and by sacerdotal authority, must everywhere tend to improve, as nations become nobler in morals, or in breadth and accuracy of knowledge. So strong indeed is this natural tendency, that we do in fact trace this improvement, in spite of hierarchies and domineering institutions, and sometimes in the higher minds, even in spite of public demoralization. Theological opinion, and the interpretation of generally received doctrines, cannot but undergo change, when the ascendant system of (what is called) metaphysics changes; much more, when, as in the last three centuries of Europe, acquaintance with the outer world has been immensely enlarged and at the same time become beyond comparison more accurate.

But the mass of the population in Christendom is very far from duly appreciating the truths of natural science; and the teachers of religion on the one side are bound down by Church Articles and Liturgies, or on the other cannot conveniently outrun the traditionary creed of their congregations. Men of business have not much time for original thought concerning religion; and a great majority of the female sex have too little scientific knowledge or too little independence of judgment to deviate knowingly from current opinion. Necessarily therefore within the same Church, whatever the submission to common ordinances, there is a great mental gap between those who are

most and those who are least influenced by the thought and knowledge of the age, especially in Astronomy, in Geology, in Geography, in Physiology, to say nothing of History and Literary Criticism. Minds which have by no means gone so far as to throw off belief of an established religion, or the cardinal and prominent tenets of a creed, nevertheless to a great extent interpret things differently, so as practically to come to a different result from the older beliefs.

Now in this matter of Prayer, it is obvious what was the primitive doctrine of most nations, and in particular both of the Hebrews and of the early Christians. That God ruled the universe by law, none had any idea. They supposed that His rule might be compared to that of an earthly king, who said to one servant Go, to another Come, to a third Do this, and was obeyed. Indeed the Hebrews, like the Persians and Arabs, supposed ministering spirits to guide the actions of the elements and of the heavenly bodies; also, to guard or watch human individuals. Instinct, under a sense of weakness or desire, often impelled them, as it impels us, to pray for this or for that; and they could but very vaguely define to themselves the limits within which prayer was right, and beyond which it would be rather impious than pious. We should all be much astonished to hear of barbarians so stupid as to pray that the new moon should give as much light as the full moon, or that a winter's day should be luminous and long as a day of summer. In the very infancy of man the steadiness of sun and moon were so fully recognized, that it would have seemed idiotic to pray for any irregularity. But there has always been an enormous margin of events concerning which man saw no revelation of a fixed divine purpose, and therefore could not chide prayer as a presumptuous desire to turn the divine decrees aside. Indeed under polytheistic belief, the gods are morally imperfect; and no greater impropriety was felt in coaxing a god (a genius, a fairy) than in coaxing a mortal A vow, in which a promise was made contingent upon the god hearing a prayer,—was thought a pious procedure; yet it is nothing but an attempt to bargain with the god. Such bargains in antiquity were solemnly sanctioned by many States, as by the Romans, and public money was often voted in fulfilment. In the Hebrew Book of "Judges" the atrocious vow of Jephthah is not blamed. Jacob in Genesis makes a distinctly contingent vow. To vow to a god the tithe of an enemy's spoil on condition of victory, seemed wholly unblameable and decidedly pious to most ancient nations.

It may be doubted whether in any Christian sect of England or the United States prayers of this character could be endured. A vow, as understood by Christians, has nothing conditional in it. If it be an arbitrary, yet it is an absolute, promise to the Most High; it is not a bargain, as with the Romans. Of necessity those among us who believe the tides, the meteors, the clouds, the winds, to be guided by laws as fixed as gravitation, are hereby disabled from praying about them or against them, equally as about an eclipse. Nevertheless, whatever weaknesses-the fruit of ancient ignorance-are incorporated with the Christian Scriptures, are accepted and even treasured up by simple hearted and pious persons, whose intellect either is not duly informed or has not duly acted on their creeds; and the deplorable dogma of Infallibility has made it very difficult for the pious to go directly against the sacred book, however grave and obvious the error. But within the compass of that book itself there is a variety of doctrine, a higher as well as a baser view; and to the higher view the nobler and more thoughtful minds tend. If at one time encouragement is given to importunity in prayer, on the assumption that God is comparable to a man who grants a petition merely to get rid of a teazing beggar; yet elsewhere it is laid down that repetition in prayer is vain, and that God is not moved by much speaking. If in one place it is said, that when two or three shall agree to pray for a thing, be it what it may, it shall be granted to them; in other places there is limitation, and human ignorance of what it is wise to ask is pointed at. In fact, in every prayer for things outward, among persons not wholly fanatical, the proviso, "if it be according to Thy will," is now understood or expressed; and in matters of vehement personal desire, the clause is probably added: "nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done." Also, if any Christian teacher be asked, under what circumstances it is reasonable to have confidence that our prayer will be granted, he will hardly fail to reply, under the guidance of a familiar text, that it is only when we know that we ask a thing which is in accordance with the will of God.

Under such a complication,-which is the ordinary state of every Church, it is (I must think) painful rudeness in an opponent, if indeed he is as well informed of the facts as a critic ought to be, to assume in the present generation of English Christians the lowest and meanest views of prayer which prevailed in less instructed and Pagan times. It exasperates too much to enlighten. It was a simple insult, nothing less, to