RELIGION AND MORALITY.

ABOUT a year ago I invited your attention to a question which at that time was occupying a good deal of space in periodical literature, and enlisting a good deal of general interest: What would be the effect upon morality of a decline in religious belief? The first result to which we arrived was that the question was somewhat obscure; religious belief, in its best sense, including moral belief. A decline in moral belief would undoubtedly be highly prejudicial to morality, though the decline of some beliefs that are accounted moral might be the signal for a real moral advance. The next result of our discussion was that, leaving moral beliefs out of the question, the decline of religious beliefs had in the course of history been highly advantageous to morality. The belief in witchcraft, for example, was wholly religious. It claimed the warrant of a Bible text for its extremest penalty. Offenders were compelled to plead for life before ecclesiastical tribunals. The decline of this belief has surely been of great advantage to morality. And so too has the decline of the belief that persecu

tion is the right and duty of the orthodox, if haply they would save the heterodox from everlasting burnings, or deter the many from heretical excursions by the example of the few. A more immoral doctrine never claimed the suffrage of mankind. But it was eminently religious. Romanists and Protestants vied with each other in devotion to its monstrous claim. The decline of this belief has been the most conspicuous event of modern times, and the moral significance of it does not admit of any question. But these beliefs were but exponents of an exhaustive system of religion, the decline of which has synchronized with the advance of civilization from the earliest times. Aside from morals, religious belief in past times has been the belief in supernatural interference with the order of the world. But this belief has been steadily declining all the ages down, and as steadily morality has been advancing; nor would it be impossible to prove that we have here no mere coincidence, but the most vital correlation, so that the verdict of history would seem to be that a decline of religious belief is positively beneficial to morality.

Or take the example of a belief which is to some extent still current among Christian men—the belief in salvation by faith alone. Can the decline of this belief be asserted in the face of recent ex hibitions? Here the evangelists, insisting that it is the scarlet thread which runs all through the Bible, and that you cannot get it out without destroying the Bible any more than you can get out the red thread in a British royal navy rope

without destroying the rope; and there the Boston lectureship, asserting that this doctrine is in "the nature of things." It may seem presumptuous to assert the decline of this belief in the face of such contemporary developments, but it will not if you will compare Mr. Cook's or Mr. Moody's statements of it with the statements of Martin Luther, which are too gross for public repetition. Such a comparison will convince you that our modern doctrine of salvation by faith alone is but the faintest shadow of this doctrine as it was held three centuries ago-that, as then held, it was actually and unavoidably prejudicial to morality; to continue in sin, that grace might abound, was the almost necessary practical inference. And even in our day the almost universal coincidence of this belief with political and commercial fraud hints at an immoral influence residing even in this pale shadow of the ancient faith which haunts our modern dreams. Who so pious as these defaulting financiers, whose rank offences "smell to heaven" in such swift succession in these latter days! And what more natural than that men who are habitually taught that morality has nothing whatever to do with salvation, and that salvation is the one great concern, should come to hold their moral obligations in such light esteem that they are wholly disregarded? Here, then, is a religious belief, the decline of which so far has wrought immeasurable good; the decline of which still further is a consummation devoutly to be wished. All who have any interest in political or personal purity, or in financial honor and

security, are bound to give no quarter to this doctrine of salvation by faith alone, but to mete out to it the righteous disrespect and scorn which it deserves.

Strangely enough, however, the discussions of this question which have so far taken place have scarcely mentioned this religious belief. These discussions have for the most part proceeded on the assumption that the only religious beliefs are those which have God and Immortality for their objects, and in asking what would be the effect upon morality of a decline in religious belief, no more has been intended than, What would be the effect of a decline of these particular beliefs? The appeal to history is not so easy here as with some other beliefs. No general decline of these, it may be, can be predicated. The development of Buddhism, however, was certainly marked by an immense decline of the beliefs in God and Immortality in comparison with Brahminism, the parent faith. But this decline was notably coincident with an immense improvement in morality. Again, Confucianism has been denied the right of being called a religion, so little emphasis it places on the ideas of God and Immortality. Nevertheless, it has been and is more moral than any other Eastern Asiatic faith. The Hebrew people always had a strong belief in one god or more, but it was singularly free from any definite belief in Immortality. When this belief was generated the people was long past its prime. The grandest representatives of the Jewish faith were the monotheistic prophets of the eighth, seventh,

and sixth centuries B.C. These had no particle of faith in Immortality, but men more moral never saw the sun. But perhaps it may be allowed that men can be intensely moral without any belief in Immortality, so long as they believe in God with all their mind and heart.

But when all things have been considered the upshot of the whole matter appears to be this: Whether a decline in men's belief in God and Immortality has an improving or a damaging effect on their morality, depends entirely upon the character of the God in whom, the sort of Immortality in which, the declining belief inheres. For it is quite possible for men to believe in such a god and such an immortality that the result of their beliefs upon the moral side shall be only degrading. The god, belief in whom uplifts and sanctifies, must be the offspring of a moral ideal, serene and holy. The immortality, belief in which is morally advantageous, must be no mere projection of our sensuousness or selfishness upon the void of the eternal years. The savage god of the old Hebrew race made men. more savage. They imitated the divine vengeance. David was a man after his own heart; he being first a god after David's own heart -cruel and vengeful, liking the smell of blood. The Greeks enthroned licentiousness upon Olympus and worshipped it. What wonder that their social and domestic life continually reproduced the follies of the gods! that mortal women were as passionate as the celestial Aphrodite, and mortal men as tricky as the divine Hephæstus!