It was reserved for the higher religions, and especially for that of which our Bible is the monument, to realize the intimate alliance of the religious and moral sentiments,--that priceless alliance, without which morals remain for the most part almost barren, and religion falls into monstrous aberrations. That the roots of religion pierce to the very cradles of humanity, may now be taken as demonstrated. Its principle is found in the necessity we feel of surmounting the uncertainties and the limitations of destiny, by attaching ourselves individually to the loftier Spirit revealed by nature outside us and within; and this principle has always remained the same; nor am I one of those who hold that we must now renounce it in the name of philosophy and science. For neither philosophy nor science can make us other than the poor creatures we are, with an unquenchable thirst for blessedness and life, yet constantly broken, crushed at every moment, by the very elements on the bosom of which we are forced to live. Philosophy and science may guide religion, may reveal its true object in ever-growing purity, may cleanse it from the pollutions in which ignorance and sin still plunge it, but they cannot replace and they cannot destroy it. There is a Dutch proverb, the profundity of which it would be difficult to exaggerate, "De natuur gaat boven de leer"--_Nature is too strong for doctrine._ The evolutions of philosophy may seem to make the heavens void, and inspire man with the idea that all is over with the poetic or terrific visions that rocked the cradle of his infancy. But stay! Nature, human nature, is still there; and under the impulse of the indestructible thirst for religion, human nature renews her efforts, looks deeper and looks higher, and finds her God once more.
Jérusalem renait plus brillante et plus belle.
But let not this conclusion, confirmed as it seems to me by the whole history of religion, prevent our boldly declaring how much that is small, puerile, often even immoral and deplorable, there is in the religious past of humanity. It is no otherwise with art, with legislation, with science herself, with all that constitutes the privilege, the power, the joy of our race. It is just the knowledge of these aberrations which should serve to keep us from falling back into the errors and false principles of which they were the consequence. And in this respect the study of the religions of ancient Mexico and Peru is profoundly instructive. It teaches us that there is a principle, bordering closely upon that of religion itself, which must serve as the torch to guide the religious idea in its development--not to supplant it, but to direct it to the true path. It is the principle of humanity. The truer a religion is, the more absolute the homage it will render to the principle of humanity, and the more will he who lives by its light feel himself impelled to goodness, loving and loved, trustful and free. The last word of religious history is, that there exists an affinity, a mysterious relationship, between our spirit and the Spirit of the universe; that this nobility of human nature embraces in itself all the promises, all the hopes, all the latent perfections, all the infinite ideals of the future; that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, the Supreme Will is good to each one of the beings which it summons and draws to itself; and that man, in spite of his errors, his failures, his corruptions, his miseries, was never wrong in following the sacred instinct that raised him slowly from the mire, was always right in renewing his efforts, so constant, so toilsome--often, too, so woful--to mount the rounds