all law and raised them up into a sphere wherein whatever they do, whatever it is, is no longer sinful for them. Many religions, in truth, have been almost entirely unconnected with the moral element. Piety is, in them, an affair between the believer and his God, and has nothing to do with the man's relations to his fellows. On the other hand, morality, in many nations, develops itself and to a noble height, without reference to any duty, without regard to heaven or hell. Near as religion and morality come to one another in the higher faiths, necessary as they are to each other's perfection, they spring from different roots, develop about different centres. It is only when, as in monotheistic systems, the moral sense is identified with the voice of God, that they coincide. And when this connection is made, it is plain that all holiness presupposes, as the root and flower which fulfil themselves in its righteous fruit, both knowledge of divine things and all the feelings which such knowledge ought to evoke.

Religion is not, then, any form either of thought, feeling, or will by itself; for all are connected together in religion. Neither will it solve the problem to unite this two or that two, as Mansel does in presenting the union of the sense of dependence with that of moral obligation, as constituting religion; or as Lipsius and Pfleiderer do in finding its essence in the conjunction of this sense of dependence with the aspiration for freedom; or as Brinton does in his Religious Sentiment, where religion is analyzed into the two elements of feeling and idea. Any one or any two of the human faculties imply, in truth, the rest.

The most astonishing thing to the student who turns from the contemplation of the faith in which he was born and bred to a study of the others current in different parts of the world is their immense variety and contrariety. As it takes all sorts of people to make a world, so all parts of human nature, all experiences of society, have contributed to the endlessly diverse forms of gods and goddesses, rituals, hierarchies, dogmas, and ethics, which fill the motley pan

theon of the world's religion. As Prof. Flint has well said:

Religion belongs exclusively to no one part or province, no one disposition or faculty of the soul, but embraces the whole mind, the whole man. Its seat is the centre of human nature, and its circumference is the utmost limit of all the energies and capacities of that nature. At the lowest, it has something alike of intellect, affection, and practical obedience in it. At its best, it should include all the highest exercises of reason, all the purest emotions and affections, and the noblest kind of conduct.

We come thus to the capital and fundamental fact in this inquiry, and it is this: that all the special manifestations proceed from an inherent general cause. It is not leaf or twig, bud or flower, that bears the root, but the one root that bears all the diversified products. Just so, man is not religious because of his ghostly fears; but he has these ghostly fears because he is a religious being. He prays to higher beings, not because he is timid or selfish or because his grandfather did so before him, but because he has a prayerful soul. He sings about gods and great spirits above and below, not to please his fancy, not as poetic sport or artistic embellishment, but because he has a spirit within, that feels itself alive and intelligent, other than the things it can touch or see or reach by any sense, and hence cannot but believe in spirits and a spirit-world. around it; cannot but form also, spontaneously and instinctively, the conception of similar greater beings,— intelligent, living, intangible, supersensuous existences, who are the authors of the wonders that salute his eyes in every quarter of earth and heaven. It belongs to no one faculty of human nature. Man is not religious because he has an intellectual nature, nor because he has a moral nature, nor because he has an emotional nature, but simply because he is man. Religion is the outflowering of humanity under the sunshine of divine influences. All the previous traits and characteristics by which previously we have essayed to determine its nature may be summed up in this general definition: Religion is the expression of that spiritual nature which con

stitutes man's true humanity, unfolding to spiritual facts and relations. All that is divine within us struggles upward by whatever support it can grasp, and with sacred awe seeks to lay hold of the divine without.

This expression of the spiritual nature varies, of course, in strength, clearness, and elevation. In some, especially in savage races and in early times, it is gross and feeble. In others, it is intense, pure, and lofty. As the spiritual nature manifests itself in the various channels of the human organism, this expression takes on various forms. Manifested through the intellect, it gives us religious knowledge or belief. Manifested through the heart, it gives us religious sentiments, attractions, aspirations. Manifested through the executive organs, it takes the form of religious worship and action.

On looking at it from its one most comprehensive idea, that of worship, we may discriminate, wherever it gets tolerably developed, these three elements: first, the Deity, believed in and adored; second, the soul, believing and adoring, seeking communion and help, made in the image of its Creator, and sharing in his immortality; third, the act of adoration, the forms, rites, ceremonies, and system of worship by which it is sought to bring the two into communication and union,-in short, the object, the subject, and the act of worship.

Even where religion is still in embryo, these three elements first, the Great Spirit without; second, the helpseeking spirit within; and, third, the adoring instinct bringing the two together- may usually be distinguished.

We will say nothing about man when in the prehuman, apelike stage that savants suppose him to have emerged from. But, as early as his mental endowments were high enough to make him properly human, as early as he could become aware of the immaterial, supersensuous life characterizing him, and feel the soul within him, then I believe he must have begun dimly to form religious ideas. The supersensible realities, within and without him, drawing him by hidden attractions, as the moon the tides, would stir the

deepest depths of his being; filling him with mysterious awe, pointing upward his thoughts, setting his feet groping for the divine paths and his tongue stammering in this word and that, seizing and casting aside symbol after symbol, rite after rite, to find some adequate expression for the object of his worship, some acceptable mode of approaching Him.

As man's nature unrolls the petals of reason and faith, under the light of progress and civilization, these three elements are each more fully developed. While, primitively, they gave perhaps only a sense of occult, intelligent energies, animating the man, the cloud, the wind, the sky,— looked upon with fear, shunned or defied, as the case might be,-ultimately they rise to a recognition of a moral and spiritual being in man, capable of an infinite and holy existence. There is attained also a sense of an Infinite and Creative Spirit, on whom man is dependent, to whom he owes gratitude, obedience, and reverence, and whom he worships in spirit and in truth.

Of course, the development of the three elements is not always equal. They are rarely all just abreast of each other. But, for religion to be complete, every one of these three chief elements should be present and fully developed, all sides of the human spirit should unite their contributions. JAMES T. BIXBY.

THE REFORMED CHURCH OF FRANCE:

ITS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

II.

We have seen that in the official Synod of November and December, 1879, there was not a majority for accepting the project of M. Bersier, which was, without doubt, a plan for a serious attempt at compromise.

In order to give more weight to its refusal to offer the hand to the liberal party, the Synod, before separating, decided that the question should be submitted to the provincial synods, which assembled in nearly all the districts, but in unofficial manner; for the government had not authorized official reunions.

Now, all the provincial synods, with one exception, gave their adhesion to what the general Synod of Paris had decided. Some went even further in the expression of their dissent.

It is worthy of remark that no liberal members assisted at these reunions, either in Paris or the country, so that the orthodox met with no opposition in their schemes or in their decisions. Judge and jury in their own cause, they condemned the liberals and issued laws of exclusion against them. The provincial synods, having received the word of command from Paris, decided with impressive unanimity exactly to the same effect as the Synod of Paris. All this, it is true, could have no legal value, because the State had not convoked the reunions; but it indicated unmistakably that it was useless to be further deluded with respect to the pacification so much desired.

In the midst of these hostile dispositions, the elections approached, which were definitely fixed in the circular of the 30th of August, 1880, for the second Sunday in March, 1881. At that time, a liberal journal advanced an idea which would have been a great step toward conciliation, had it been accepted by the orthodox. This idea was not new,