few rules that relate to human nature are so, but it is one as uniform as most, that where neither reason, nor the genuine affections, but imagination, acts as the prime impulse in religion, the malign emotions are found in close attendance, and seldom fail to convert spurious piety into an energetic rancour. Then again this rancour reacts upon the enthusiasm whence it sprang;the child schools the parent (an inverted order of things not unusual where the progeny has much more vigour than the parent.) Enthusiasm, when it has come to sustain Fanaticism, is far more darkly coloured, is more profound, more mysterious, than the illusory piety that has no such load upon its shoulders. Things bright and fair, although unreal, are the chosen objects of this; but the other asks whatever is terrific and destructive. This sort of transmutation of sentiments, which happens when the enthusiast becomes the fanatic-when malignity is shed upon illusion, much resembles what often takes place in feverish sleep; -who has not seen in his dreams, splendid and smiling pageants, gradually relinquishing the brilliant colours they first showed, just as if the summer's sun were sinking from the skies;-but presently a murky glimmer half reveals menacing forms; and in the next moment some horrid and gory phantom starts forth, and becomes master of the scene!

The false religion then of the FANATIC includes elements not at all known to the mere Enthusiast;

and before we descend to the particular instances it will be advantageous to ascertain the general (if not universal) characteristics of the spurious malign Religion which animates his bosom;they may be reduced to three capital articles; namely, 1st. A deference to MALIGNANT INVISIBLE POWER; 2d. The natural consequence of such a deference-rancorous contempt or detestation of the mass of mankind, as religiously cursed and abominable; and 3d. The belief of corrupt favouritism on the part of Invisible Powers, towards a sect or particular class of men; and this partiality is the antithesis of the relentless tyranny of which all other men are the objects.

I. We have named-A Deference, or religious regard to MALIGN INVISIBLE POWERS, whether Supreme or Subordinate, which will be found to enter, as primary ingredient, into every form of Fanaticism, ancient and modern, and may well be called its GERM.

To believe that evil has affected other races of rational agents besides the human, and that such depraved and malignant beings, though unseen, infringe in some manner upon the human system -is one thing: and it is a belief which reason admits, and revelation confirms: but either to impute in any sort, malignancy to the Supreme Power, or to make subordinate malignant powers the objects of deference, direct or indirect, or to grant to their agency the prime place among

religious notions, is quite another thing; and it is a perversion of this sort, more or less gross, and more or less apparent, which imparts force to every species of rancorous religious sentiment.

On a field like this the imagination, if it be troubled by a gloomy temper, or made turgid by fierce passions, and especially if it be saddened by actual sufferings, will never want scope or fail of excitements. Nothing less in fact than the hope which it is the prerogative of true religion to impart can bar the entrance of the mind into this realm of fear-a realm upon which mankind has in every age eagerly sought to make incursions. If we are to employ phrases in accordance with the facts which history presents, we are bound to affirm that the NATURAL RELIGION of man, is the fear and service of Malignant Powers. Gloomy superstition springs up involuntarily in the human mind, depraved as it is, and exposed to so many pains, wants, and cruelties, and liable withal to death. Man does not become religious by mere force of gratitude: the unnoticed benefits of every hour lead him not to the shrine of the Supreme Beneficence: it is danger and sorrow that drive him to the altar. The necessities and miseries of the animal frame-the confusion and misrule that prevail in the social system-the stifled sense of guilt in every bosom, and the boding of future punishment, as well as the hatreds which woe and oppression cherish,

are active and pungent elements, working in the soul with incomparably more force than belongs to the mild sentiments that may be engendered either by the spectacle of the order and beauty of the material world, or by the fruition of the common goods of life.

The theism of philosophers has never availed to counteract that natural tendency which draws on mankind to the worship of Evil Powers. Neither the ancient nor the modern systems of abstract philosophy have taken any strong hold of the spirits of men; and the failure has happened, not so much because such systems were too refined or too abstruse for vulgar apprehension; but because they have not made provision for the actual position of man in the present state. Sages have announced the Divine perfections, and there have stopped;-but to bring these perfections to bear, in any mode of effective relief, upon the guilt and sorrows of mankind, was a problem quite beyond their power. Let it be granted that philosophical theism may be true in some far distant upper sphere; but ON EARTH it serves to explain nothing; it assuages no trouble; it is no more applicable to the real occasions of life, than are the dreams of the poet. The sage and the poet must alike be looked upon as mere men of idleness and speculation; their theories of the world-the one abstruse, the other gorgeous, ask to be carried back many ages, or carried forward as many,

before space can be found where they may be lodged. Stern experience indignantly or contemptuously rejects both.

Of all the popular modes which have been devised for counteracting the tendency of mankind to malign superstition, that embodied in the mythology of the people of Greece may claim to have been the most successful, as well as the most rich and splendid. This system of worship-not so much the work of design, as the spontaneous product of the national mind, avoided provoking the resentment of tortured hearts by giving a direct contradiction to gloomy surmises;-it did not interdict sanguinary superstition; but rather occupied beforehand the elements of terror, and worked them up as the materials of its supernatural machinery. No example can be adduced, from any other quarter, of so skilful a substitution of the sublime and beautiful for the terrific. Delicious intellectual voluptuousness, with poetry, and the drama, with painting, architecture and sculpture, as its ministers, got the start of the violent passions, and of natural terrors; and without insulting human woe (as philosophy does) and without giving licence to ferocious impulses, as was done by the oriental superstitions, it soothed every harsh feeling by the insinuating fascinations of melody, symmetry, and colour. The Grecian imaginative theology, after having preoccupied the human mind by its exquisite forms of ideal,