fully impressed with its importance and its vastness, as if under the impression themselves that the great problem had been intrusted to their hands. They were not insensible to the magnitude of the questions at issue, and alike in their mental acuteness, in their language, and in their zeal, they have shown that the great problem was well intrusted to their hands. If the question were now asked, To what people of all lands and ages such a question could be best submitted? there would be but one answer—that the question whether man could originate or discover a religion that would be fitted for human wants in all ages could be most appropriately and safely lodged with the Greeks.

The result of the trial is now before the world. The trial is complete. It is not to be repeated. Whether Christianity is true or false, it may be assumed now that a more hopeful trial could not now be entered on; it may be assumed that if there is no revelation given to man, then man, on the subject of religion, must give himself up to despair.

There is no system of religion that man has devised that meets the wants of the race; there is none,

unless it be Christianity, that the race in its progress will care to perpetuate. None of the religions which man originated before the Christian era, if we except Hinduism and Buddhism, have now an existence in the world, and it will not be pretended by those who reject the Christian revelation that these meet the wants of men, or that they can be perpetuated in the advancing periods of the world.

All the others have perished-perished with the empires where they were originated; perished with the priesthood to which they gave power; perished with the temples and altars which time has overthrown

perished never to be revived. The temples of Baalbec and Karnak will not be rebuilt; the altars of Mexico will not be reconstructed; the Parthenon will not be repaired; and the Pantheon will not again welcome the gods of all nations. These ancient systems of religion were dying out when Christianity appeared, and would have died at any rate. It is a fine remark of Augustine that “Christ appeared to the men of a decrepit, dying world, that while all around them was fading, they might receive through him a new, youthful life."*

It was not in the power of Julian, with all the influence and wealth of the world at his command, to quicken the old Roman Paganism into life again; it was the task of Mr. Gibbon to record the dying out of the old system, whatever might be his record in regard to the new.

In particular, it pertains to my argument to remark that the system of the Greeks, the result of the highest wisdom of man, has departed forever. That religion has ceased altogether; the “ elegant mythology" of the Greeks, as Mr. Gibbon calls it, has passed away. There is not a vestige of it remaining. There is not now an altar, even in Athens, where Paul saw so many, where a heathen god is worshiped; there is no one there erected to an unknown God.” Every altar that stood there in the time of Paul has long since been overthrown, not to be rebuilt; the splendid temples on which his eye rested when he stood on Mars' Hill have disappeared. Even the Parthenon is in ruins, and there has not been vitality enough to perpetuate it in its beauty as a work of art; as a structure for the worship of Minerva it is to be entered no more forever. There was nothing in the ancient religion of Greece,

or in her philosophy as bearing on religion, that the world could lay hold of as worth perpetuating, and the religion of Greece, the highest result of human wisdom —of the speculation of the profoundest and acutest intellect of the world—has departed; the ruin of the ancient religion is universal. Not more entire is the ruin of kingdoms, dynasties, empires-of thrones and palaces—than is the ruin of temples and altars. All lie in promiscuous ruin: Karnak, Baalbec, Birs Nimroud in Babylon; the splendid temples in Athens and in Corinth; the temples of Jupiter, and Janus, and Apollo—all in Rome save the little temple of Ceres and the Pantheon—all are in ruin. No part of the world is now influenced in the slightest degree by the Egyptian, the Persian, the Assyrian, the Roman, the Greek religions, by the religion of the Druids, or of any of the old Teutonic or Scythian races.

It would be but carrying out this view to remark that the world, as left to itself, has made no advances since. Hinduism indeed survives, but it has made no progress, and it has not commended itself to man as the religion which he needs as civilization advances. Buddhism survives, but it also has made no progress in character, or in adapting itself to the wants of man, since it started from India and spread over China. Nor have men who have rejected Christianity, and renounced the ancient Paganism, although they have shown that they are abreast or ahead of the world in other things, devised a system of religion that would meet the wants of man, or that would commend itself to mankind as worthy to be perpetuated. Mr. IIume and Mr. Gibbon proposed no new system; Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, Hobbes of Malmesbury, Morgan, proposed none; the system of Lord Herbert commended itself to but few minds in his own age, and now commends itself to none. The world has not shown that it is satisfied with the views of Hegel and Kant, of Strauss, of Renan, and of Comte. But my present purpose does not require me to pursue this argument.

It remains only to make a remark on the other thing suggested in regard to the limitations of the human mind—that limitation as illustrated in the attempt to give to man a "book-revelation"-to accomplish what

” the Bible claims to accomplish. The inquiry is, what, in the failure of reasoning on the subject, has man produced claiming to be a "book-revelation" from God, or to supply what reason has no shown itself able to supply.

It must be assumed here that those efforts are the result of the unaided human intellect, for a contrary supposition, or an admission that they are inspired, would not, of course, bear on my argument. For the sake of argument, at least, it may be admitted that they are the result of unaided human genius. The question is, whether they meet the wants of man; whether they supply what Grecian wisdom could not supply; whether men will be likely to attempt any thing more with any prospect of success.

The powers of the human mind have exhausted themselves in regard to a "book-revelation" in the Sibylline

” oracles, the Zendavesta, the Vedas and Shasters, the Koran, and the Book of Mormon-chiefly in the Koran.

It can not be denied that in some of these there is vast power; it can not, with reason, be supposed that in respect to a pretended revelation these are to be surpassed, or that these pretended revelations are to be superseded by those of human origin that will better meet the wants, or that will have higher claims to the faith

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of men. Including the Bible now in the number of books that claim to be a revelation from God, it may be assumed that, if that is on the same level with respect to its origin, the human powers have exhausted themselves, and that the question whether man can devise. what shall be received as a revelation from God is closed forever, and that the choice of that which shall guide the race is limited to these. If the Bible is of divine origin it determines the matter that there is to be no other, for it claims to be final on the subject, and man must, therefore, embrace the Sibylline oracles, or the Zendavesta, or the Shasters, or the Bible, or the Koran, or the Book of Mormon, or have no revelation.

In respect to the question how before us, however, the Bible is to be put aside, for we are inquiring into the capacities of thé human mind on the subject apart from the Bible--from Christianity.

The question for the infidel is whether he shall embrace one of the other books referred to, or whether he shall attempt to originate one of a higher order that will more perfectly meet the wants of men, or whether he shall reject all claims of pretended revelations whatever.

The remark which I am now making is, that the powers of the human mind have exhausted themselves in these efforts, and that it is hopeless now for an impostor to produce a “book-revelation,” or such a pretended book, that shall be so far in advance of the rest of the world as to meet the wants of mankind, or that shall control as many millions of the human race as these books do or have done, or that shall have the prospect, as we believe the Bible has, of securing the ultimate faith of all men.