rovided by science. The Rev. Dr. Martineau,
speaking as a theistic philosopher, accurately delineated the
boundaries of religion and morality, proceeded to show the
untenableness of these two extreme positions, and nobly vindicated the
complete autonomy or independence of ethics, whether of theological or
scientific doctrines.

Before stating the views which an ethical society advocates as to the
relations between religion and ethics, it would be very opportune to
remark that in the symposium or discussion referred to, sufficient
emphasis was not laid on an extremely important distinction which
should be borne in mind when we estimate the comparative importance of
religion and ethics. It is this. Religion, to ninety-nine out of
every hundred men who talk about it, does not mean religion in its
genuine character, but philosophy. A man's religion is merely a
synonym for the reasoned explanation of the universe, of man, and their
destiny, which he has learnt from the particular ecclesiastical
organisation to which he belongs. Thus, the Christian religion means
to the Anglican the Bible as interpreted by the Thirty-nine Articles;
to the Dissenter, the same book, as interpreted by some confession,
such as the Westminster, the Calvinistic, or the like. To the Roman
Catholic it is synonymous with what has been, and what in future may
be, the verdict of a central teaching corporation whose judgment is
final and irrevocable. Similarly, religion for the Mohammedan is the
precise form which his founder gave it, whilst the Buddhist is equally
persistent in upholding the version of Sakya Mouni. Now, it is plain
that religion itself is one definite thing, and cannot be made to cover
a multiplicity of contradictory statements. What, then, are these
Catholic, Protestant, Mohammedan and Buddhist religions? They are not
religions at all: they are merely philosophies, or systematised
accounts of God, the world, and of man, which have obtained large
support in earlier stages of the world's history. Religion itself is a
thing apart from these ephemeral forms in which it has been made to
take shape. It is the great sun of reality, whose pure and authentic
radiance has been decomposed in the spectrum of the human brain, each
man seizing on an individual ray of broken light and making that the
sum and substance of his belief.

Our little systems have their day,
They have their day and cease to be;
They are but broken l