been sometimes at least transiently impressed with the conviction that these claims had been sadly neglected. But secularism scouts the idea. It says to the merely nominal Christian, to the man who lives as if his religion were a dream or a lie, that he is quite right; and it says this, if Mr Holyoake be a correct interpreter of it, not on the ground that religion is a delusion or a lie, but on the ground that the present life is more certain and more important than another life.

This would be a very comfortable doctrine to many minds, if it were not so irrational that only very few will be able to believe it. There is nothing particularly certain about the present life. What is certain even about the present moment, except that before you can so much as think of it it has already ceased to be, and you can no longer either discharge duty or enjoy pleasure in it? The present is so evanescent that it hardly concerns us at all. And as to the future, who is certain of what a day or an hour will bring forth? Who can reckon with confidence on to-morrow? We may easily be far more certain of the existence of God and of the immortality of the soul than that we shall be alive on the morrow. The one thing certain about this life is that it is uncertain. And as it is not only uncertain but short at the longest, the notion that it can be more important than eternal life is a fancy for which there can be no possible warrant.

The secularist principle in question is erroneous for this further reason, that it falsely distinguishes duties into duties of this life and duties which pertain to another life. That is not a distinction which can be reasonably defended. If there be a God, the duties which we owe to Him are duties of this life. If there be a future world, it is our present duty to take full account of that fact. On the other hand, all our duties are duties to God, and the way in which all our duties are discharged will have an influence on our eternal destiny. There is thus no absolute separation possible between secular and spiritual duties; and still less can they be rationally opposed. A man who neglects any of his so-called secular duties must look for God's disapproval. He who would live a truly pious life must work the works of integrity and uprightness, of benevolence and mercy, of temperance, prudence, and industry. A man will surely not do his duty in and for this world worse but better because he feels that God blesses his efforts in the cause of truth and goodness; and that when the labours of life are ended, he will, if he have acquitted himself faithfully, enter not into utter annihilation but into eternal happiness.

It is, then, most irrational and improper advice to tell a man who believes it even probable that there is a God, or that there is a future world, that he may be comparatively heedless of his duties

and interests as regards them without guilt or danger. If a man disbelieve in God and the future world, or believe that nothing can be known. about them, he cannot, of course, be reasonably expected to give them even a subordinate place either in thought or practice. He can owe no duty to what does not exist,- no thought to the unknowable. If this world be all that our intellects can apprehend, our sole attention should be given to it. Secularism, in order to be self-consistent, must be complete, must be as exclusive as Christianity, must demand for the world our whole mind and heart, our whole strength and life. But in this form it is obviously a doctrine which none but convinced and confirmed atheists can do otherwise than utterly repudiate. It is a doctrine, also, by which the world will only lose. No good cause on earth will be more energetically promoted, no evil cause will be more energetically opposed, without faith in God and His eternal mercy and justice than with it. Where the love of God is not, love to man will certainly not be stronger in consequence.

A second secularist principle is, that "science is the providence of man, and that absolute spiritual dependency may involve material destruction." If men, we are told, would have things go well with them, they must discover and apply the laws of nature. They must learn what is true before they can do what is right, or can so act as to secure

happiness. Evil can be warded off and good can be obtained only by following the directions of science; prayer is useless, experience proving that it receives no answer; dependence on providence is a delusion, as we are under the dominion of general laws, and special providence there is none.

This is the substance of an argument which in Mr Holyoake's hands assumes many forms, and which all secularists often employ. There is nothing true in it, however, to which the theist cannot cordially assent. He believes that every law discovered by science is a law of God to which man is bound to pay due respect. The whole of science is more sacred to him than it can possibly be to the secularist, for, in addition to having the sacredness of truth, it has the sacredness of being a manifestation of God's character and will. Unless a very unintelligent and inconsistent man, indeed, he must feel more deeply than the secularist that every truth of science is entitled to his reverence, and to such obedience as he can give to it. He can make no exclusions, exceptions, or reservations, but must accept science in all its length and breadth, so far as his powers and opportunities extend. Secularism has no peculiar, and still less any exclusive, right to science. Theism has at least an equal claim to it, and to whatever good can be derived from it.

All that properly belongs to secularism is the

denial of the utility of prayer and the existence of providence. It opposes science to prayer and providence. But this is what those who believe in the two latter never do, so that the prayer and providence attacked by secularism are conceptions or misconceptions of its own. The theist believes in prayer, but he does not believe in mere prayer— in prayer which despises the use of means-in prayer which dispenses with watching and working. He believes in providence, but he does not believe in tempting providence-in casting himself down from a height with the expectation that angels will take charge of him—in a spiritual dependency which neglects the aids to material safety. The man who truly prays cannot credit the allegation that experience proves that prayer receives no answer. That is not his experience. He is conscious of having daily asked for spiritual blessings, and conscious of having daily received them. He knows a sphere of existence in which not the exception to the law but the law itself is, Seek and ye shall find, Ask and it shall be given unto you-a realm where sincere and earnest petitions are always directly accomplished. There are innumerable blessings, unfortunately unknown and unvalued by the secularist, although they are far more real and precious than bodily and external advantages; and these blessings, which science does not pretend to offer us, and which general laws