en up to now rather
provokingly continue to be, with the very "uniformity and connection of
cause and effect" as visible evidence of there being not only "a
personal will," but a creative and controlling Power as well. In this
connection comes to mind a certain old Book which, whatever damage
Semitic Scholarship and Modern Criticism may succeed in inflicting on
its contents, will always retain for the spiritual guidance of the
world enough and to spare of divine suggestions. With the prescience
which has been the heritage of the inspired in all ages, one of the
writers in that Book, whom we shall now quote, foresaw, no doubt, the
deplorable industry of Mr. Froude and his protege "popular thought,"
whose mouth-piece he has so characteristically constituted himself, and
asks in a tone wherein solemn warning blends with inquiry: "Canst thou
by searching find out God; canst thou find out the Almighty unto
perfection!" The rational among the most loftily endowed of mankind
have grasped [219] the sublime significance of this query, acquiescing
reverently in its scarcely veiled intimation of man's impotence in
presence of the task to which it refers.

But though Mr. Froude's spiritual plight be such as we have just
allowed him to state it, with regard to an object of faith and a motive
of worship, yet let us hear him, in his anxiety to furbish up a special
Negro creed, setting forth the motive for being in a hurry to
anticipate the "crystallization" of his new belief:--

"The new creed, however, not having crystallized as yet into a shape
which can be openly professed, and as without any creed at all the
flesh and the devil might become too powerful, we maintain the old
names, as we maintain the monarchy."

The allusion to the monarchy seems not a very obvious one, as it
parallels the definitive rejection of a spiritual creed with the
theoretical change of ancient notions regarding a concrete fact. At
any rate we have it that his special religion, when concocted and
disseminated, will have the effect of preventing the flesh and the
devil from having too much power over Negroes. The objection to the
[220] devil's sway seems to us to come with queer grace from one who
owes his celebrity chiefly to the production of works teeming with that
peculiar usage of language of which the Enemy of Souls is credited with
the special fatherhood.

No, sir, in the name of the Being regarding whose existence you and
your alleged "popul