ng, they
lay aside truth, sincerity, and sanity. Their language is the language
of fawning, lying, imbecile, cowardly slaves. Intending to exalt, they
debase the imaginary object of their adoration. They presume Him to be
unstable as themselves, and no less greedy of adulation than
Themistocles the Athenian, who, when presiding at certain games of his
countrymen, was asked which voice pleased him best? _'That,'_ replied
he, _'which sings my praises.'_ They love to enlarge on 'the moral
efficacy of prayer,' and would have us think their 'omnipotent tyrant'
best pleased with such of his 'own image' as best 'sing his praises.' Of
their 'living God' they make an amplified Themistocles, and thus reduce
(conscientiously, no doubt,) the Creator to a level with His creature.

The author is without God; but did he believe there is one, still would
he scorn to _affect_ for Him a love and a reverence that nothing natural
can feel for the supernatural; still would he scorn to _carry favour_
with Deity by hypocritical and most fulsome adulation.

Finely did Eschylus say of Aristides--

To be and not to seem is this man's maxim;
His mind reposes on its proper wisdom,
And wants no other praise.

Tell us, ye men of mystery, shall a God need praises beneath the dignity
of a man? Shall the Creator of Nature act less worthily than one of his
creatures? To do God homage, we are quite aware, is reckoned by
Christians among their highest duties. But, nevertheless, it seems to us
impossible that any one can love an existence or creature of which he
never had any experience. Love is a feeling generated in the human
breast, by certain objects that strike the sense--and in no other
conceivable way can love be generated! But God, according to Newton, is
neither an _object_ nor a _subject_, and though, all eyes, all ears, all
brains, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence, and all action, he is
_totally unknown to us_. If Christians allow this to be a true
description of the God they worship, we wish to understand how they can
love Him so vehemently as they affect to do--or how they can pay any
other than _lip_ homage to so mysterious a Deity? It is usual for slaves
to feign an affection for their masters that they do not, cannot
feel--but that believers in a God should imagine that he who 'searcheth
all hearts,' can be ignorant of what is passing in theirs, or make the
tremendous mistake of supposing that their