The simple question is: has man a spiritual nature? Is there any eternal quality, any immortal element, any intellectual and moral being in him, by which he is made a dweller in a supersensuous world? This is a question that addresses itself to the immediate consciousness. The Christ cannot answer it: for, on the supposition, he is an angelic being, and has no human consciousness. He can tell us nothing about it. As a messenger from another sphere, he might, perhaps, have told us whether men and women went on living in another sphere after leaving this, a matter of merely incidental importance; but on this point he has communicated nothing. Neither has Jesus, on this point, communicated anything. Why should he? How should he know? But on the great point, the point on which everything turns, apart from which, a future existence would have no significance whatever, and from which a future existence seems something like a necessity; on the central position of man's moral and spiritual self-hood, Jesus throws a power of affirmation by word and act, by deed of sacrifice and life of devotion, sufficient to outweigh a whole tribe of physiologists. The man who lived an eternal life, gives the best demonstration that there is such a thing. The man who put the elements of death beneath his feet, gives best cause for believing that death is not annihilation. The man who exhibited a life that was worth preserving, gives the most encouraging hope that it may be preserved. Let time and space, duration and prolonged consciousness, go. Is the hoping, trusting, believing, preserving soul, a Power? If it is, we may leave the rest. And whether it be or not, the soul must attest for itself. The believers in Jesus declare that one soul at least has attested it, by an experience which, however singular, is not exceptional, and which plants in every breast the moral assurance of immortality. No revelation of a life beyond the grave, did Jesus make. No definite statement of his belief in such a life does he seem to have put forth. He certainly gives no prominence to it, and lays no stress on it. disclosure of a life above the grave, he does make. His belief in that for all men was overwhelming. It is the one certainty he rested on: and that men should have practical assurance of this, is literally of infinite more moment than they should have ever so unquestioning a persuasion of a continued existence.

Applying the same argument to other departments of religion, to the graces of personal character, for instance, it would be easy to show how the authority of Jesus had weight in establishing the standard of character, in prescribing the laws of duty, the ideals of attainment, the rules of social obligation, and the bonds of brotherhood. The philosophy of self-denial is that which he proceeded on, the law of self-sacrifice is

that which he enforced, the principle of human sympathy is that which he illustrated. It is with his religion that selfishness and sensuality are at issue. "The imitation of Christ" would be appropriately called the 'imitation of Jesus; for his is the only character that is set before us. They who at any time have made war against the moral standards of Christendom, have made war against the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, the precepts involved in the parables, and the Golden Rule. There was nothing in the Gospel of John for them to assail. The ideal they rejected was that of the Nazarene. If they could break that mould of manhood, their task was done.

The religion of the Christ is losing its hold on the convictions of men. Science disowns it; government has thrown off its spell; politics and social economy are no longer under its influence; institutions of learning do not render allegiance to it; philosophy, mental, moral, material proceeds on methods peculiarly its own; art and literature set up ideals it would repudiate, and obey principles it would pronounce unhallowed. It lingers yet in symbols, and traditions, and forms. Churches are built according to its plans, and worship is conducted in its mode of speech. But the living mind of the world scarcely recognizes its existence, either as law, guide, or inspiration.

The religion of Jesus, on the other hand, is reviving. The character of Jesus is attracting study. In Germany, France, England, earnest men are trying to recover his lost image. Respect for him has given birth to a copious literature. The names of Schenkel, Renan, Furness indicate the extent and the spirit of the interest that is awakened in him; and the appeal to his example on the part of men and women who have at heart the improvement of society proves what hold he has on the modern heart. There is small reason, however, for thinking that the person of Jesus will ever, at this distance of time, be restored with the projection of outline, the firmness of texture, or the freshness of color, that would be necessary to command the attention of mankind. An imperial figure overawing, uplifting and enchanting the multitudes of men, learned and simple, he can never become. The modern religion must be scientific, not historical, personal or literary. Neither of the two religions of the New Testament as such, will control the faith or direct the aspiration of modern communities. No religion will do it that does not ground itself on all the knowledge and experience there is, and give wings to new globe. The question we have been considering is, after all, a question of criticism, a concern of antiquity, a matter of curious learning. Religion is nothing of that sort. It is an interest of life; and life is a thing of to-day, new every morning and fresh every evening. We

DOUBT.

REMARK it in myself that doubt, or somewhat closely akin to it,

I though a to so many, is to me, a upon

though apparently a poison to so many, is to me, a salt upon my food, and necessary to my health. Fixed and rigid opinion, upon matters of infinite scope, gives me an indigestion; and, this quite independently of its subject matter; it is the hardness, like that of twice-cooked meats, which disagrees with my stomach. The moment the boundary is passed, which separates the lower realm of Knowledge, from the higher one of Belief, all unqualified intellectual statement becomes to me, not bread, but a stone. My most endeared persuasion nourishes and comforts me, only while accompanied by a certain inward reserve, a reticence as of the soul itself, which keeps it always flowing and undefined, an air to breathe, rather than a block to handle. The stronger, and more fruitful it is as persuasion, the less it will bear to be torn from its root-hold in the heart, and set out in the cold soil of opinion.

It may be that doubt is too strong a word for what I have here in mind. Certainly it differs widely from scientific dubitation, as also from scepticism, and pyrrhonism. The doubt of science is purely provisional; it exists only to be extinguished, for it is but the price and tentative of knowledge. Mr. Buckle, among his plenitude of confusions, confounds this order of doubt with scepticism; which is of another genus altogether. The sceptic is one who indeed raises question, but with the assumption that to raise question is the utmost achievement of man's intelligence. He will not even assert that he knows nothing, but again questions, "What do I know?" To inquire endlessly and with endless interest, but to remain poised in inquiry, answering one question only with another more far-reaching, — this is scepticism. The celebration of it by Mr. Buckle, may excite a smile, since nothing can be farther removed from his own eager and premature dogmatism.

The pyrrhonist goes farther, and runs scepticism into the ground. He suppresses inquiry itself as useless, since nothing can be known. To the sceptic, thought has no end, to the pyrrhonist it has no beginning.

Scientific doubt is like to neither of these, since it assumes the possibility of knowledge, and may even make the assumption in excess. Such is perhaps the prevailing mood of science in our day; and as pyrrhonism would suppress thought, because nothing can be

known, so there are now some who would suppress it, because everything may be learned by mere observation, without taxing at all the native resources of reason.

The utility of this order of doubt cannot be denied; indeed, the common capacity for it may, in one view, be said to measure the possible range of a civilization. All business of profit begins with expenditure, that is, with apparent impoverishment. He who buys a farm, does so with harvest only in expectation; but the payment, or at least the obligation contracted, is immediate: thus, in one sense, his resources are diminished. The doubt of science is a like expenditure; the dubitating mind parts with cash on hand, that is, with the immediate sense of certitude, in favor of harvests that are as yet contingent.

There are, however, intellectual misers, who hoard the feeling of certitude with such avarice as never with their good will to pay out a penny-worth. Sometimes a like close-fistedness is caused by mere timidity. There are fearful souls who think the intelligence of the universe a hard master, that may at any moment come upon them, and demand payment in current coin; nor daring therefore to invest, they lay up their talent in a napkin, where it will be always ready. The act in this case is not wilful, but belongs to a certain frame of mind, though one that is rather to be excused than admired. There are some also, who, not so much through superstitious trepidation, as from intellectual infirmity, are demoralized so soon as they begin to question. Indeed not only individuals, but nations and races differ widely, as to the amount of vigorous dubitation they can admit into the mind without prejudice to its poise and coherence. The Semitic race, for example, appears inferior to the Indo-European in this respect. Hence the absolute tone of its literature, and the want of epic amplitude and dramatic freedom; hence, too, the narrow and rigorous polity, which has ever prevailed with nations of this race, from which there is no escape but into the lawless life of Bedouins. To people of this cast, doubt is a disease, and if prolonged, is destruction. Thus Saracen philosophy ran quickly to atheism in Averroes; and Semitic civilization has invariably collapsed, when developed to the point where absolutism in thought must end, and inquiry begin. To such people Mohammedanism is peculiarly adapted, and yet in the end, by rendering their infirmity chronic, peculiarly mischievous. With the will of Allah always at hand to explain everything, from the rising of the sun to a sore toe, it is like the clay eaten by some savages, which satisfies hunger, without nourishing the body. Palgrave, when sailing down the Persian Gulf, noticed a singular red