which he proposes to remedy; and as if, instead of judging of the constitution which he proposes merely as a remedial system, we group that and all the evils which he proposes to correct together, and by rejecting his system suppose that we get rid of all concern about those evils. Or, still further it is as if we were to hold the historian responsible for the crimes and calamities of which he makes a record, and to suppose that by denying the credibility of his statements, the facts which he has recorded cease to be true. A large part of the Bible, in introducing the account of the remedial system, is occupied in a mere statement of facts about the fall and depravity of man. But the sacred historian did not originate the fall or the depravity of man, any more than Livy or Hume did the wars with the Sabines, or the contests between the red and white roses; nor should the Bible, or the system of religion which it reveals, be held responsible for those facts any more than Gibbon should be for the character of Nero and Caligula, or than the Father of history should for the plague at Athens. A history should be held answerable only as a record of facts. The facts are independent things, and remain the same, whether recorded or not. A remedial system should be held answerable only as such, and not at all for the evils which it proposes to remedy. Those evils are independent things, having no immediate connexion with that system, and are evils in which others are as much concerned as its friends. It should be held answerable, not for the introduction or the existence of the evil, but only for what it proposes to do, and for the fair inferences which follow from its influence on a system already existing.

With these indisputable principles before us, I now remark, that Christianity did not originate the evils of our race, and is no more responsible for them than infidelity is. They are matters of simple FACT, whether Christianity be true or false— as it is a fact that there is disease in the world, and that men suffer and die, whether the remedies proposed answer the purpose or not. The atheist, the deist, the man of the world, the man of science, the historian, the moralist, the epicurean, and the stoic, have as much to do with them as the Christian, and are as much bound to explain them. We meet on common ground here, and in the development of our different systems we start together.

Let us look a moment at some of those facts:

(1.) Man is a fallen being; a sinner. Can there be any dif ference of opinion on this point? The Bible records the fact; and do not Livy, and Sallust, and Hume, and Gibbon, and

Baronius, and Alison do the same thing? Is there any historica. record which describes man as any otherwise than as a sinner? The accounts of the perfection or perfectability of man are in philosophical speculations, not in historical records. The Bible describes man as prone to evil. And does not every man so regard the race? What mean the laws made to restrain men? What mean prisons, and padlocks, and securities against fraud and dishonesty? Is there a merchant who would repose quietly on his pillow if there were not a strong and skilfully constructed lock on his store? Is there a vault of a bank that could be safely left open for a single night? Is there a man who does not make it his business to guard against the fraud, duplicity, cunning, and violence of every other man as if he would do wrong?

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Now, about the fact of the depravity of man there surely can be no manner of doubt. The fact exists, whatever remedy is proposed; whatever statement is made of its origin; or however you may account for it. It no more pertains to the Christian, or to his theory of religion, than it does to the theory or religion of any other man. Men do not get rid of it by denying Christianity; they do not make it any worse by embracing it. It belongs to the race as such, and we must make the best of it. Whether Christianity be true or false, the evil is the same, and all men will continue to act as if the doctrine were true. may differ in our explanations about the way in which man became a sinner; we may speculate in a different manner in regard to the time when he begins to go astray; we may have different views about the condition of the infant mind; and we might not agree as to the exact connexion between facts which now exist, and the act of the progenitor of the race, but the material facts pertain to one system as much as to another. Revealed religion is in no way peculiarly concerned about it, except that it has offered an explanation of the manner in which sin has come into the world, and it is responsible only for that explanation.

(2.) The same is true in regard to sickness and suffering. Man is a sufferer, whatever system of religion be embraced or rejected. The earth is a vale of tears, and no art of man can drive sickness, care, bereavement, or pain from it. That the race suffers is a great fact which is in no way affected by the question whether this or that form of religion be true or false, except as religion may in some way mitigate sorrow. We may differ as to the cause of suffering. We may have our different theories in explanation of the question how it is con

sistent with the government of God. We may inquire whether sin is the cause, proximate or remote, or whether it is to be traced wholly to some physical laws; but the fact remains the same, and it pertains no more to the Christian system than to any other. Christianity has originated no disease. It has not generated the malaria of the Pontine marshes; it does not give birth to the plague in Cairo or Constantinople, nor has it caused the cholera which sweeps over the plains of India. There is not a disease to which the human frame is subject that has been either increased or aggravated by the Christian religion, or for which the Christian religion, or any other religion, is responsible. There is not one of them that would be healed by burning the last Bible on the earth, or by driving the last vestige of religion from the world.

(3.) Thus, too, it is with the mental sorrows to which the race is subject. The illusion to which I have adverted operates with more power here than it does in regard to the point just referred to. There is no one who would directly charge Christianity with being the cause of a cancer or of consumption; but there is many a one who would suffer the illusion to play around the mind that it is the cause of the mental sorrows to which we are subject, and that those sorrows are parts of this system of religion. There has been a steady effort, though not always open and avowed, to connect these sorrows and Christianity together, and to lead men to suppose that by casting off the restraints of religion they free themselves from mental griefs. The reason of this illusion I have already adverted to, and the injustice of the feeling may be seen at a glance. An effort has been made to make it appear to a world that seeks to be gay, that somehow the alarms of conscience, the dread of death, and the apprehension of the world to come, are the creation of Christianity, and that religion is responsible for their existence in the soul. But is this so? Can it be so? Do these things exist nowhere else? Are they found under no other system of religion? Are they never found where there is no religion of any kind? And is it true that by casting off the Christian religion a man obtains a guarantee that he will never be troubled by the remembrance of guilt; that he will escape from remorse of conscience; that he will not be overborne by the fear of death? He must have studied the world very imperfectly who can suppose that these things are the creation of religion, or that they have any peculiar relation to religion of any kind whatever. The truth is, they belong to us as men. They are the operation of great laws of our nature. They lie back of all religion, and would not be

affected, except by being deepened, if you were to sweep every Bible and every Christian church from every land.

(4.) The same thing is true in regard to death. Here, too, the illusion to which I have adverted constantly operates. There is a feeling somehow that death, always a painful subject of reflection, peculiarly pertains to religion, and a serious contemplation of death, or a remark made about it as a personal matter, is somehow regarded as an omen that one is becoming religious. But what has religion particularly to do with the subject of death? Did it introduce it into the world? Has it aggravated its pangs? Do religious people only die? Can a man, by becoming an infidel or an universal sceptic, avoid dying? Will it drive death from the world to laugh at religion; or would it if it could be proved that all religion is imposture? The truth is— and it is a truth so obvious that it would hardly be proper formally to state it if it were not for the illusion already referred to that death pertains to our race, whether Christianity be true or false. Religion did not introduce it, and is in no way responsible for it; nor is death in any way modified, whatever opinions may be entertained of Christianity, or of any other system of religion. We may differ in our explanations of it. I may have my theory about the cause, and you may have yours, and still the fact remains the same. Death approaches with the same steady pace, and with the same repulsive aspect, whatever may be the nature of our speculations. Religion does not quicken his pace, nor does infidelity retard it; and he is just as likely to come into the ball-room, or among a company of savans speculating on its cause, or among a company of revellers blaspheming all religion, as into the church of the living God. We are all brothers here, and we all have an equal interest in this matter. The entrance of death into our world was prior to the entrance of Christianity, and if Christianity should take its everlasting flight from the earth, the angel of death would linger here, glad of her departure, for he could make the pains of death more terrific than they are now.

If these things are so, then all men have the same interest in them. They lie apart from all religion as indisputable FACTS, and they pertain as much to the infidel as the Christian; as much really to the scientific lecture-room as to the pulpit. Religion finds these things in existence; it does not create them, and is in no manner responsible for them. Christianity found them upon the earth, as Galen and Hippocrates found disease, and for their existence there is no more responsibility in the one case than in the other. Here we begin our investigations together, having

the same facts to deal with, and with the certainty that the adoption or rejection of any particular form of religion does not materially alter them. The point now illustrated is, that the Christian, the infidel, and the scoffer, are equally concerned in these facts, for they pertain to man whatever form of religion he has, or whether he has any religion or none. This leads me,

II. In the second place, to observe, that as there are evils pertaining to our race which lie back of religion, and in which all men have a common interest, so there are certain principles which pertain to all men; principles supposed to be true by the Christian religion, but which are in no way affected by the question whether Christianity be true or false; principles which are better met by that system than by any other. My limits will not allow me to illustrate them at length; and all that I can do is to advert to them in the most summary manner. Among those principles are the following:

(1.) That man is a moral agent, and in this respect differs from the whole brute creation beneath him. I say that this pertains to man as such, for it cannot be pretended that the Bible, or the Christian system, has so altered the nature of man as to make him a moral agent. He is so under every system of religion, and is equally so whether Christianity be true or false. It would be easy to show that the Bible recognises this, and adapts itself to it better than any other system of religion.

(2.) That he is under a moral government. I mean that there are marks of a moral government over the world entirely independent of Christianity, or that there is a course of events which tends to the punishment of vice and the reward of virtue. It is possible to make out the great principles of this government without the aid of revelation, for it was seen and understood when there was no revelation. The course of events in the world is such that, as a great law, one course of conduct will be followed by life, health, happiness, and a good name; another by disease, poverty, wretchedness, disgrace, and a dishonoured grave. Innumerable facts in the world, and long observation, show what is the course which will tend to the one or the other, and so clearly that it may be the basis of counsel to those who are entering on the career of life. These principles accord with those in the Bible, and have received an additional sanction from the Bible, but they exist independently of any particular form of religion, and are those on which men must act. They are met and carried out better by Christianity than by any other system, for the whole arrangement is one that is designed to exhibit ultimately the perfection of moral government.