subjective"[125] religion; they are not religion at
all. The belief of them, attended with certain feelings, is religion;
and it must always be religion "in us," for in whom else should it be
(unless in angels; which would not make it less "subjective"). It is
just as rational to call doctrines "objective religion," as to call
entreaties "objective compassion;" and the only real fact of any
notability deducible from the sentence is, that the writer desired
earnestly to say something profound, and had nothing profound to say.

To this same defect of intellect must, in charity, be attributed many of
the wretched cases of special pleading which we continually hear from
the pulpit. In the year 1853, I heard, in Edinburgh, a sermon from a
leading and excellent Presbyterian clergyman, on a subject generally
grateful to Protestant audiences, namely the impropriety and wickedness
of fasting. The preacher entirely denied that there was any authority
for fasting in the New Testament; declared that there were many feasts
appointed, but no fasts; insisted with great energy on the words
"forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats," &c., as
descriptive of Romanism, and _never once_, throughout a long sermon,
ventured so much as a single syllable that might recall to his
audience's recollection the existence of such texts as Matthew iv. 2 and
vi. 16, or Mark ix. 29. I have heard many sermons from Roman Catholic
priests, but I never yet heard, in the strongest holds of Romanism, any
so monstrous an instance of special pleading; in fact, it never could
have occurred in a sermon by any respectable Roman Catholic divine; for
the Romanists are trained to argument from their youth, and are always
to some extent plausible.

It is of course impossible to determine, in such cases, how far the
preacher, having conscientiously made up his mind on the subject by
foregoing thought, and honestly desiring to impress his conclusion on
his congregation, may think his object will be best, and even
justifiably attained, by insisting on all that is in favor of his
position, and trusting to the weak heads of his hearers not to find out
the arguments for the contrary; fearing that if he stated, in any
proportionate measure, the considerations on the other side, he might
not be able, in the time allotted to him, to bring out his conclusion
fairly. This, though I hold it an entirely false view, is nevertheless a
comprehensible and pardonable