pel
between the universal religion which it has restored, and the act itself
of that restoration, which constitutes the Gospel in the special sense
of the word. Now what I am here maintaining is the fact of the existence
in modern society of the elements of the universal religion. I am far
from sharing in the illusions of my fellow-countryman Rousseau, when he
affirms that even if he had lived in a desert isle, and had never known
a fellow-man, he would nevertheless have been able to write the
_Profession de foi du Vicaire Savoyard_. I know very well that if I were
a Brahmin, born at the foot of the Himalayas, or a Chinese mandarin, I
should not be able to say all that I am saying respecting the goodness
of God. The light which we have received--I know whence it radiates;
but, by the help of that light, I seek its kindred rays everywhere, and
everywhere I find them in humanity.

Let us endeavor, then, according to our plan, to recognize in the
universe the marks of the Divine goodness. Let us first of all
interrogate the human soul, which is certainly one of the essential
elements of the world; and let us interrogate it with regard to the
great fact of religion.

The universal religion presents to observation two principal forms of
mental experience: the sense of the necessity for appeasing the Divine
justice, and the sense of the necessity for obtaining the help of God.

The sense of the necessity for appeasing justice reveals itself in
sacrifices. There are sacrifices which are merely offerings of
gratitude, and freewill gifts of love. But when you see the blood of
animals flowing in the temples, and not seldom human blood gushing forth
upon the altars, you will be unable to escape the conviction that man,
in presenting himself before the Deity, feels constrained to appease a
justice which threatens him.

The sense of the need of help shows itself in prayer; and this must be
the especial object of our study, because it is in the fact of religious
invocation that we shall encounter the idea, obscure perhaps, but real,
of the goodness of the First Cause of the universe.

Prayer is a fact of the universal religion. Whence is it that we derive
a large part of what knowledge we have of the ancient civilizations of
India and Egypt? From ruins: and the chief of these ruins are the ruins
of temples, that is to say, of houses of prayer. Would we go further
back than these monuments of stone? I interrogate those pioneers o