by no means ceased to regard it
as a quarry whence I might dig precious metal, though the ore needed a
refining analysis: and I regarded this as the truest essence and most
vital point in Christianity,--to sympathize with the great souls from
whom its spiritual eminence has flowed;--to love, to hope, to rejoice,
to trust with them;--and _not_, to form the same interpretations of an
ancient book and to take the same views of critical argument.

My historical conception of Jesus had so gradually melted into
dimness, that he had receded out of my practical religion, I knew not
exactly when I believe that I must have disused any distinct prayers
to him, from a growing opinion that he ought not to be the _object_ of
worship, but only the _way_ by whom we approach to the Father; and
as in fact we need no such "way" at all, this was (in the result) a
change from practical Ditheism to pure Theism. His "mediation" was to
me always a mere name, and, as I believe, would otherwise have been
mischievous.[2]--Simultaneously a great uncertainty had grown on me,
how much of the discourses put into the mouth of Jesus was really
uttered by him; so that I had in no small measure to form him anew to
my imagination.

But if religion is addressed to, and must be judged by, our moral
faculties, how could I believe in that painful and gratuitous
personality,--The Devil?--He also had become a waning phantom to
me, perhaps from the time that I saw the demoniacal miracles to be
fictions, and still more when proofs of manifold mistake in the New
Testament rose on me. This however took a solid form of positive
_dis_belief, when I investigated the history of the doctrine,--I
forget exactly in what stage. For it is manifest, that the old Hebrews
believed only in evil spirits sent _by God_ to do _his bidding_, and
had no idea of a rebellious Spirit that rivalled God. That idea was
first imbibed in the Babylonish captivity, and apparently therefore
must have been adopted from the Persian Ahriman, or from the "Melek
Taous," the "Sheitan" still honoured by the Yezidi with mysterious
fear. That _the serpent_ in the early part of Genesis denoted the
same Satan, is probable enough; but this only goes to show, that that
narrative is a legend imported from farther East; since it is certain
that the subsequent Hebrew literature has no trace of such an Ahriman.
The Book of Tobit and its demon show how wise in these matters the
exiles in Nineveh were beginnin