is
that in the sinner which succumbs to sin, and in the wrong-doer that
which takes pleasure in wrong, for there is none else. Once we rub out
the distinction between God and man, we rub out all _moral_
distinctions as well. If we are not other than He is, how can we act
other than He wills? If we hold that the soul is only "a finite mode
of God's infinite attribute of thought," part of "the necessary
expression of the infinite attributes of eternal Being," the sense of
sin can be no more than an illusion.

Or shall we be told that, whatever a man's theoretical Determinism, in
practice he will {50} always be conscious of his freedom? The answer
is, Yes, perhaps, provided his moral instincts are sound; but the
average mortal, when he has to choose between the hard duty and the
easy indulgence, will be sorely tempted to find a reason for yielding
in his determinist philosophy. And is a doctrine likely to be true
which, the moment it is seriously applied, undermines the very
foundation of morality, and of which the best that can be said is that
people do not consistently apply it? M. Bourget's _Le Disciple_ is not
a book for everyone; but in it the distinguished author has drawn an
instructive picture of the effect of Determinism as a theory upon a
self-indulgent man's practice. As Mr. Baring-Gould aptly says, "Human
nature is ever prone to find an excuse for getting the shoulder from
under the yoke."

Pantheism, as a matter of fact, whichever way we travel, is ultimately
compelled to deny the qualitative distinction between good and evil,
declaring both to be equally necessary, and thus arrives once more at
its conception of a Deity who, though said to be "perfect"--presumably
in some "super-moral" sense--is not good, and hence cannot be a
possible object of worship for us. How little the pantheist's God can
mean to us will be understood when it is stated that, according to
Spinoza, man "cannot strive to have God's love to him." [6] Indeed,
how could the universe "love" one of {51} its mere passing phases? Is
it a wonder that this cheerless creed has "increasingly repelled rather
than attracted religious people" when once they have understood its
inwardness? We ask for bread and receive--a nebula; we call for our
Father, and are told to content ourselves with a totality of being!

And when Pantheism has thus despoiled us of our religious possessions
one by one, so far as this life is concerned, what is its