ity, by the contemplation of Jesus as
"God manifest in the flesh." But Dr. Cumming's God is the very opposite
of all this: he is a God who instead of sharing and aiding our human
sympathies, is directly in collision with them; who instead of
strengthening the bond between man and man, by encouraging the sense that
they are both alike the objects of His love and care, thrusts himself
between them and forbids them to feel for each other except as they have
relation to Him. He is a God who, instead of adding his solar force to
swell the tide of those impulses that tend to give humanity a common life
in which the good of one is the good of all, commands us to check those
impulses, lest they should prevent us from thinking of His glory. It is
in vain for Dr. Cumming to say that we are to love man for God's sake:
with the conception of God which his teaching presents, the love of man
for God's sake involves, as his writings abundantly show, a strong
principle of hatred. We can only love one being for the sake of another
when there is an habitual delight in associating the idea of those two
beings--that is, when the object of our indirect love is a source of joy
and honor to the object of our direct love; but according to Dr.
Cumming's theory, the majority of mankind--the majority of his
neighbors--are in precisely the opposite relation to God. His soul has
no pleasure in them, they belong more to Satan than to Him, and if they
contribute to His glory, it is against their will. Dr. Cumming then can
only love _some_ men for God's sake; the rest he must in consistency
_hate_ for God's sake.

There must be many, even in the circle of Dr. Cumming's admirers, who
would be revolted by the doctrine we have just exposed, if their natural
good sense and healthy feeling were not early stifled by dogmatic
beliefs, and their reverence misled by pious phrases. But as it is, many
a rational question, many a generous instinct, is repelled as the
suggestion of a supernatural enemy, or as the ebullition of human pride
and corruption. This state of inward contradiction can be put an end to
only by the conviction that the free and diligent exertion of the
intellect, instead of being a sin, is part of their responsibility--that
Right and Reason are synonymous. The fundamental faith for man is, faith
in the result of a brave, honest, and steady use of all his faculties:

"Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of rever