these great fundamental principles of society, that its development goes on, while both religion and morality decline, until, at last, cut off from the sources of its life, it is well nigh extinct when it is restored by Christianity. The progress from Homer in religion and religious morals being downward, and speculative religion being first in the form of Polytheism, with clear evidences of a prior belief in One God, and then Polytheism in which all traces of Monotheism have disappeared, and then Atheism, there is no foundation for the order of religious development, advocated by Hume,* Comte,t and in this country by Theodore Parker, according to which Fetichism comes first, Polytheism next, and Monotheism last. The poems of Homer, in connection with subsequent history, show that Monotheism is the first form of religion, and all other religions are a corruption from that. They furnish us with evidence also, that the foundations of civilization are laid in religion,

*Natural History of Religion.

+ Philosophie Positive. Discourses on Religion.

morality, and the recognition of popular rights. They show us that in the progress of civilization, the highest stage in that which is most nearly connected with man's dignity and happiness is when religion and morality are conceived of as only different aspects of the same thing. We find in these poems, at that early time, the presence of moral ideas, practically influential in a far greater degree than was afterward the case. A higher ethical tone prevails, and as a subsequent accumulation of experience was accompanied by a lower order of moral conceptions, we are led to reject the materialistic notion of the development of moral ideas from force or custom cr expediency. We find the presence of a traditional religion pointing back to the great primeval revelation, and in its counterparts of the Messianic traditions pointing forward to CHRIST as the centre and only explanation of the history of the world.

THE

SUSPENSE AND RESTORATION OF FAITH.*

IN our consideration of the pamphlets, the titles of which we have placed below, we wish to disclaim, at the outset, any association of the names of Mr. Theodore Parker and Dr. Bellows which would imply that we regard them as standing upon the same platform, or as subject to the same ten

* THEODORE PARKER's Experience as a Minister, with some Account of his Early Life and Education for the Ministry. Boston: Rufus Leighton, Jr. 1859.

The Suspense of Faith. An Address to the Alumni of the Divinity School of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Given July 19th, 1859, by HENRY W. BELLOWS. New-York: C. S. Francis & Co., 554 Broadway. 1859.

A Sequel to "The Suspense of Faith." By HENRY W. BELLOWS, D.D. New-York: D. Appleton & Co., 346 and 348 Broadway. 1859.

dencies. We consider them as widely differing, both in opinions and method; and as logically bound to pursue directly opposite results. We have associated them together only because the avowals and confident boasting of the one and the admissions and honest apprehensions of the other, furnish most remarkable confirmation of the views which we hold of a great movement in the religious world.

In order, if possible, to present these views clearly, we wish to draw attention to the fact, which we hope, as we proceed, to make evident, that there are in the Protestant world two schools, broadly distinguished from each other in their general characteristics, although neither is represented exclusively by any one organization, and each passes, by almost imperceptible gradations, into the other. For the want of better appellations we shall call one of these schools the historic and evangelical, the other the rationalistic. The most prominent points of difference between these schools grow out of the different views which