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immanent laws of the physical and moral world, saying
that they are so many divine volitions ; that thereby man
is led to the conclusion that he is called of &od to labour,
to live in society as a son, a husband, a father, a citizen
of a town and a country, finally as a member of the great
human family, — then that kind of religion which consists
in forms, in rites, in dogmas, has lost all value. Eeligious
doctrine, considered as what is essential, will lay down
certain principles very rich in application, but in them-
selves veiy simple. Eeligious life, considered as a distinct
kind of life, will hold relatively a very small place in ex-
istence, but — and this is the grand side of the view — it
will act within on the entire man. According to the pro-
found expression of an apostle, eating, drinking, sleeping,
waking, rest, labour, all will be and conduce to the glory
cf God (I Cor. X. 31). The labourer at the plough, the
artisan in the timber-yard, the weaver in the factory, the
mother by the cradle's side, the merchant in his count-
ing-house, the artist in his studies, the chemist in his
laboratory, the astronomer in his observatory, all will
have with them, no less in small things than in large, the
love, the desire, the thirst for perfection. Actuated by
religion, they will do their best to imprint on all the seal
of the exact, the beautiful, the grand; in a word, the
perfect. Actuated by religion, they will also reverently
abstain from whatever sullies, enervates, or enslaves the
soul. Actuated by religion, they will, moreover, exert
their energies to put an end to social corruption and
miseries. Actuated by religion, men will be liberal in
politics, peacefully reforming, and skilfully philanthropic.
