memory, the imagination, the
conscience, and the heart.

Even then, if we conceded that elementary "spiritual and moral truth"
is not only congruous to man's faculties, but in some shape universally
recognized and possessed, it might yet be contended, from the manner
in which such truth is dependent for its power and vitality on the
forms in which it comes in contact with the human spirit and stimulates
it, that ample space is left for such a divine instrument as the Bible;
and that it would be in perfect conformity with the laws of our nature,
--in analogy with the known modes in which external aids give efficacy
to such truth. At the same time, be pleased once more to remember, that
I concede so much only for argument's sake; I contend that in the
stricter sense, without some external aid,--and the Bible may be at
least as effectual,--the religious faculty will not expand at all; and
that, even where there are these indispensable external influences,
the recognition of the truth is obscure or bright, as those influences
vary in their degrees of appropriateness. Where they are rude and
imperfect, (as amongst barbarous nations) we have the spectacle of a
soul which struggles towards the light, like a plant to which but
small portion of the sun's rays is admitted; it depends on the free
admission of the light whether or not it shall arrive at its full
development,--its beauty, its fragrance, and its color. The most that
merely human culture can promise, even under the most favorable
circumstances, (witness ancient Greece!) is that men, in some few
favored instances, may possibly attain those truths which it may be
admitted are congenital to the soul, and easily recognized when once
propounded but which, in fact, few men, by nature's sole teaching,
ever do clearly attain. It is infinitely important that the path,
dimly explored by sages alone, should be thrown open to mankind. Is it
not even possible, then, that this task should be performed by a book
like the Bible? and if such a book were given, would it not be,
I once more ask, in analogy with the fundamental laws of the soul's
development,--its uniform dependence on external influences for any
result, and the variable nature of that result, as the influence
itself is more or less appropriate? To affirm that each man at once,
by in internal illumination alone, attains a clear recognition of
even elementary "moral and spiritual truth" is to ignore the laws
according t