also, Diviserunt sibi vesiimenta mea et super vestem ineam niiserunt sortem." The ideas of infinity, eternity, and pow- er, which have hitherto clothed the Deity, fell to Mr. Spencer's share, together with the correlative emotion of awe. Mr. Harrison came in for a larger quantity — though perhaps less indispensable, and more allied to the perfection of dress which Christianity introduced than to the simple clothes of natural religion — necessary for decency and dignity. Brotherly love, the improvement, moral, mental and material, of our fellow-men, self-sacrifice for the general good, devotion to an ideal — here are some of the "clothes of religion" which Mr. Harrison and the Positivists have appropriated. And having appropriated them, both these philosophers try to persuade themselves and the world that, after all, the clothes are the important part of religion, and that if they dress up something else in the same clothes it will do just as well as the old faith. Mr. Spencer dresses up the unknowable with infinity, eternity, and energy; Mr. Harrison dresses up humanity with brotherly love, and the worship of an ideal. But the clothes won't fit. The world may be duped for a time, and imagine that where the garments are there the reality must be; but this cannot last. It is not the cowl that makes the monk, and it is not the clothes that make religion. The misfit is too apparent to remain long unnoticed; and then, again, the clothes cannot even cover the whole substance of the new creed. Mahomet and Hume, two of the saints in the Positivist calendar, are patent excrescences; and the clothes of Christianity can by no stretching be made to cover them at all. Red Riding-Hood thought for a time that the wolf which had put on her grandmother's clothes was her grandmother in reality; but the long, rough arms, the big eyes, and the large teeth, which the clothes could not hide, helped to betray its real nature. The clothes of religion will never fit either the unknowable or humanity. The misfit will arouse suspicion ; and if suspicion makes us look closely we shall see the teeth and rough arms. But it is not until each has been stripped of its clothes that it will be visible in its full deformity — or, rather, to drop for a moment our latest comparison, in its full meagreness and unsubstantiality. Mr. Harrison has stripped the unknowable. Let us now endeavor to strip his own deity — "Humanity, as controlling and controlled by nature according to natural law."
But before proceeding further, let me endeavor to explain more in detail my meaning in calling the religious language and conceptions which the Agnostic and Positivist have preserved " clothes of religion." The very essence of religion is belief and trust. All the emotions which the great object of true religion arouses, whether as God creating or as God incarnate, have their whole raison d'etre in our absolute belief and trust. They are called forth by facts and realities, and their beauty, depth, and essential character depend on this. They differ from mere sentiment just as a man's love for his wife differs from the sentiment he may have for a heroine of romance. No love is too ardent for God, because he is all-good and all-loving; no awe too deep, because he is all-wise and all-powerful ; no trust too absolute, because he never deserts them that put their trust in him. So too as to the sentiments proper to Christianity. The martyrs did not die for a feeling or an idea as such ; they died becaused they believed Christ to be God, and that he bid them go through all torments rather than deny him. They believed him to exist, and that death would unite them to him whom they loved, for whom they suffered, whose smile was their joy, whose every word and action was their rule of life, and union with whom was the only perfect end of their being. "If Christ is not risen," said the apostle, "then is your faith vain." The root of their devotion was belief in a real fact. Convince the would-be martyr that Christ is no longer in existence, is not approving his action, and will not welcome him after he has passed through the gates of death, and his love and devotion evaporate. The essence of the deepest feelings consist in their being aroused by a reality; and if that be taken away, the feelings themselves lose all meaning and dignity. The clothes of a handsome man are intended to set off the essential dig- nity of his appearance. Put them on a scarecrow, and be they never so rich and well made, their dignity is gone. Their dignity was part of his dignity. And so too religious sentiments depend for their dignity on religious belief — on belief in really existing objects to which they may be worthily applied.
I say, then, that all these feelings, ideas, and emotions which are associated with religion are its fitting clothes, but that the essence of religion, the central figure which they adorn, is trust in real objects worthy of these things ; and further, that
