ht at this point. God guides animals by direct
revelation--by their instincts; but having given man reason, and free
will, he gives him the whole field of life for their exercise upon the
indirect revelations he makes to us through the mediation of others. For
all that we know of history, geography, politics, mechanics,
agriculture, poetry, philosophy, or any of the common business of life,
from the baking of a loaf of bread, or the sewing of a shirt, to the
following of a funeral, and the digging of a grave, we are indebted to
education, not to inspiration. All analogy then induces the belief that
religion also will be taught to mankind by the ministry of human
teachers, rather than by the direct inspiration of every individual.

But we are instructed, that, "as we have bodily senses to lay hold on
matter, and supply bodily wants, through which we obtain naturally all
needed material things, so we have spiritual faculties to lay hold on
God, and supply spiritual wants; through them we obtain all needed
spiritual things." That we have both bodily senses and spiritual
faculties is doubtless true; but whether either the one or the other
obtain all needed things is somewhat doubtful. I can not tell how it is
with mankind in Boston, for I am not there; and this being a matter in
which religious truth is concerned, Mr. Emerson will not allow me to
receive instruction about it from any other soul; but I see from my
window a poor widow, with five children, who has bodily senses to lay
hold on matter, and supply bodily wants; yet in my opinion she has not
obtained naturally all needed material things; and if there be a truth
which lies emphatically in the plane of her own consciousness, it is,
that she is in great need of a cord of wood, and a barrel of flour, for
her starving children. I know, also, a man, to whom God gave bodily
senses to lay hold on matter, and supply bodily wants, who, by his
drunkenness, has destroyed these bodily senses, and brought his family
to utter destitution of all needed material things. From one cause or
another, I find multitudes here in poverty and destitution,
notwithstanding they have bodily senses. It is reported, also, that
there is a poor-house in Boston, and poverty in Ireland, and starvation
in Madeira, and famine in the inundated provinces of France, and misery
and destitution in London; which, if true, completely overturns this
beautiful theory. For, if, notwithstanding the possession of