8. MORALITY AND RELIGION DISTINCT YET INSEPARABLE.—The distinction between morality and religion has always been known.

Noah Webster's definitions are exact. As to morality, it is this: "The quality of an intention, an act, a sentiment, when tried by the standard of right."

And religion he defines thus: "The recognition of God as an object of worship, love and obedience." The word religion, as derived from relegere, carries the idea of collecting again, or of going over again in feeling, thought, or in speech, our relations to the Infinite One. Also, this derivation of the word religion is the one given by Cicero, an excellent authority, namely, with Cicero, its meaning is: to read, study or contemplate anew and over again. But again others would derive it from religare, to bind anew.

Whichever the derivation, it does not appear to affect the doctrine of religion as a constitutional sentiment in human nature. Yet in spite of distinctness in definition, morality and religion are so intertwined, that many people do not clearly apprehend the difference, but speak of morality as a religion; and not a few, with false ideas of religion, imagine that there is virtue in religion without the possession of morality; and others, that morality, when highly cultivated, is all-sufficient without the aid of religion.

Yet, as the elements of both morality and religion are inborn, the reasonable proposition is, that in all true religion there is a pure morality; "by their

fruits ye shall know them"; and that in all perfected morality there is pure religion.

The one cannot be excluded from the other, yet the ground-principle of each has its own distinct. origin.

The ground-element of morality is in an inborn appetency, desire and love for "the true and the right," a guiding principle of the soul that tends to right action.

Religion also is an inborn sentiment or natural law in the constitution of man-the ground of the religious nature, under normal conditions, being, in an innate respect, reverence, awe and love for superior beings, and especially for that Supreme Being that exhibits perfection and holiness.

The first, morality, is a pure sentiment of love for a true principle; the second, religion, as pure religion, is a sentiment of love for the Supreme Being, as manifesting in his constitution the elements of truth, righteousness and goodness. The one is love for a principle; the other is personal love: and this second. kind of love, religion, could have no ground of existence without the first kind-the moral.

There cannot be a morality false in principle, for the essence of morality is in the agreement of the moral forces of the soul which trend towards "the · right," with the will, which determines to do right. And this agreement between the will and the other powers or faculties of the moral nature is intuitively known, or consciously known and apprehended. And so it is, that though by the opposition of the will the contra of morality may prevail, this does not

originate in a false moral nature, but in a badly advised or a stubborn and bad will; for there may be false ideas of morality, as when erroneous reasoning blindly leads the way, and with perverted judgment instructs the moral nature; as when persecuting Saul verily thought himself in the path of duty till the Lord stopped him in the way.

There can, however, be a false religion, as when an immoral divinity is worshiped from fear or from custom. Thus the chaste Lucretia adored the unchaste Venus. But this adoration and worship lacked a moral element, and so, like all forms of false religion, tended only to the bad.

Thus it appears that the essence of the religious element—its ground-principle—is in the object as well as in the subject, namely, the object feared and loved is necessary to the existence of fear and love in the subject; and as this object is necessarily external, the religious element cannot be pure à priori.

Hence, when the object worshiped with fear, awe, reverence and love is in itself an unworthy object, devoid of a pure moral constitution-this object being, as just recited, a constituent and necessary element in the religious ground-principle-the religion founded upon it must necessarily be false.

The distinction, then, in morality and religion is radical, while yet their close affinity and necessary conjunction is also radical. This, then, is the mark distinguishing true religion from false the true is objectively moral; the false, objectively vicious.

Hence, there can be no hesitancy as to the proper

attitude of the State or the Government towards religion.

A religion that tends to morality, that coexists and flows onward with it, can safely be tolerated and protected; but a religion that tends to vice is destitute of the moral element, and cannot be protected without danger to the stability of the state itself.

Thus, if the constitution of the United States, by a wide-open policy, debases the quality of citi zenship by inviting thereto the Pagan and the Mor mon, of vicious moral tendency, then the constitution needs amendment in this regard.

In a true religion there may be many false worshipers, but the state cannot distinguish here the true from the false-as it can between true and false elements in religion-elements, not doctrines.

9. THE SUPERNATURAL IN RELIGION; IN NATURE. But in religion men see the supernatural, and object to a science of religion, on the ground that we have certain knowledge only of the natural. There is, however, a supernatural in the natural-in the existences and the events of time; and there is also a supernatural as to things external; in other words, a supernatural relating to man's present life, and a supernatural relating to his spiritual life here, and in a future world.

Scientists hold that the laws of nature are fixed, and never transgress their bounds; hence that the intervention of the spiritual in nature is contra to our experience and our reason, and cannot be admitted as fact and science. This view is true; yet not all

the truth. Kant holds to certainty in the laws of nature, but shows that the certain natural effect can be predicated only of a (certain) natural cause; and that the natural cause must originate somewhere in a supernatural cause; and that this supernatural may be quite different in kind from the natural; and may have power, and does have power, to institute or to interject another series of natural causes and effects, without at all interfering with the general course of a prior series. This is certainly true as to what now concerns us-cause and effect in its moral aspect.

For instance, in the first and second commandments of the decalogue, God represents himself as the Lord, and as the deliverer of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage; and also as a jealous God, insisting on his own rights—visiting iniquity and showing mercy.

Now, the course of events here referred to by the Lord God is natural and logical, in that the Israelites should desire freedom to worship God, and that the Egyptians should refuse to give it to them, knowing as they must that the concession would end in the freedom of Israel and the loss to themselves of a serving people.

In the natural course of events, the Egyptians, being a powerful people and well armed with many horsemen and chariots of war, the time had not come for the exodus from Egypt.

Moses' strong objections to undertaking the work of deliverance were valid: thus: "And Moses said unto God, Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh,