kind; and in nothing has that progress been so clearly evinced as in the gradual elevation of man's conceptions of the character of the deity he worships. During all the primitive ages, religion was idolatry, and still is so, almost all over the world. But with growing intelligence there slowly arises a higher idea of the Divine Nature. Polytheism passes into monotheism, and the gross, limited, anthropomorphic idea of God gives place to the loftier ideal of an "Infinite and Eternal Spirit." In this clearing away of limitations how far was the work to go, and what to he finally left? The theologians had been driving destructive criticism to its last extreme, with but little apparent care for the consequences. There grew up a vigorous ecclesiastical agnosticism, asserted even by the fathers of the Church. Clemens Alexandrinus (a. d. 200) says of God, "We know not what he is, but only what he is not." Cyril of Jerusalem (a. d. 350) affirms, "To know God is beyond man's power." St. Augustine (a. d. 400) observes, "Bare is the mind that in speaking of God knows what it means." John of Damascus (a. d. 800) declares, "What is the substance of God or how he exists in all things, we are agnostics, and can not say a word." Duns Scotus (a. d. 1300) remarks: "Is God accessible to our reason? I hold that he is not." This tendency to remove the Divine Nature beyond the grasp of reason, and to hold that "a God understood is no God at all," has grown in strength in modern times, and reached its full expression in the theological philosophy of Hamilton and Mansell, which landed inquiry upon this subject in blank negation. Finding that the "Infinite and Eternal Spirit" transcended and baffled all reason, they assumed that reason brings us to an infinite nothing, so that we have no alternative but to give up the idea of an Infinite Power, or fall back upon faith. Mr. Spencer strenuously resisted this conclusion. Ho maintained that the most inexorable logic brings us not to an Infinite Nothing, but to an Infinite Something; and, although this "Eternal Spirit" transcends the reach of reason, and is "past finding out," yet that its existence is the profoundest of all verities. Where the case broke down in the hands of the theological analysts, he insists that it is demonstrably the strongest. Whether he proves his case is not here the question; we only declare that such is his position, which is in dead antagonism to atheism. But it is proper to say that many of his able opponents acknowledge that Mr. Spencer has contributed new and powerful arguments for the existence of an "Infinite and Eternal Spirit." In the presence of these facts, well known to all who care to know, what shall we say of the veracity, the honor, or even the decency, of those who flippantly reiterate this groundless charge?
And it is important here still further to observe that Mr. Spencer is not a denier or antagonist of religion. He holds it to be a reality, a great truth; in short, nothing less than an essential and indestructible element of human nature. The religious institutions of the world, he maintains, represent a genuine and universal feeling in the race just as really as any other institutions. With the accessory superstitions which in all ages of ignorance have overgrown and perverted the religious sentiment, he is, of course, not in agreement; and he maintains that the confounding of these with the religious sentiment itself, is a mischievous mistake of religionists and anti-religionists alike. And he furthermore holds that science, in clearing away these superstitions, is bringing us ever nearer to the underlying truth, and is, therefore, doing the highest religious work. And, besides, in all his discussions of religious subjects, though bold, he is reverent, respectful to sincerity, tolerant of honest prejudice, and never wantonly irritat-
