" The writer takes Rationalism to be the science of material!
circumstances. Rationalism advises what is useful to so-
ciety without asking whether it is religious or not. It makes
morality the sole business of life, and declares that from
the cradle to the grave man should be guided by rea«
son and regulated by science. It looks on man, to all
practical purposes, as a purely material being — otiier sys-
tems have chiefly spiritualised him. It would have been
well if they had spiritualised his miseries, but they have
only refined into nothings his happiness, and left his wrongs
and wretchedness solid, material, and enduring. Rational-
ism does not regard num through the distorting spectacles or
theology, which reveals only wounds, bruises, and putrifying
sores, but discovers in humanity the genns of indefinite
moral progression, which the genial influences of truth, love,
and justice will develope, and intelligence nourish for ever.
