he people there is really no great
difference between the present and the past. There is a close family
likeness in this matter of superstition between now and long ago, and
this state of matters will continue so long as a knowledge of physical
science--that science which treats of the laws by which God is pleased
to overrule and direct material things--is not made a religious duty.
There are physical sins and there are moral sins, and the punishment for
the first is apparently even more direct than for the second, for in
the case of physical sins we are punished without mercy. Through neglect
of these laws, we are continually suffering punishment, shortening and
making miserable our own lives and the lives of those dependent upon us;
and periodically judgments descend on the careless community, in the
form of severe epidemics. Any religion which advocates practices, or
teaches doctrines inconsistent with our physical, intellectual, or moral
well-being, cannot be from God, and _vice versa_; and this is a strong
argument in favour of Christianity _as taught by its Founder_. I wish I
could say the same of the Christianity taught by our ecclesiastics,
either Protestant or Catholic.

The introduction into the heathen world of the fundamental truths that
there is but one God, omnipotent and omniscient, who overrules every
event, that He has revealed Himself through His Son as a God of love and
mercy, and that man's duty to Him is obedience to His laws, was a mighty
step in advance of the gross conceptions of idolatry formerly prevalent
among these nations. But neither heathens nor Christians had for a long
time any clear idea that the overruling of God in Providence was
according to fixed laws. Being ignorant on this point, they ascribed to
unseen supernatural agency, working in a capricious fashion, all
phenomena which appeared to differ from, or disturb the ordinary course
of events. Upon such matters heathen and Christian ideas commingled, and
thus heathen ideas and practices were incorporated with Christian ideas
and practices. Then, when ecclesiastical councils met to determine
truth, and formulate their creeds, these combined heathen and Christian
ideas being accepted by them, became dogmas of the Church, and
henceforth those who differed from the dogmatic creed of the Church, or
advocated views in advance of these confessions, were regarded as
enemies of truth. Naturally, as the Church became powerful she became
more