leaves the evident marks of Intelligence
and Design in the whole constitution and course of Nature unaccounted
for or unexplained.

Influenced by these and similar considerations, many thoughtful men have
recently avowed their belief that the two grand alternatives in modern
times are, Christianity and Pantheism. The Abbe Maret and Amand Saintes
differ only in this: that by Christianity the former means Catholicism,
the latter means the Gospel, or the religion of the primitive church;
but both agree that Pantheism is the only other alternative. Schlegel
contrasts the same alternatives in the following impressive terms: "Here
is the decisive point; two distinct, opposite, or diverging paths lie
before us, and man must choose between them. The clear-seeing spirit,
which, in its sentiments, thoughts, and views of life, would be in
accordance with itself, and would act consistently with them, must, in
any case, take one or the other. Either there is a living God, full of
love, even such a One as love seeks and yearns after, to whom faith
clings, and in whom all our hopes are centred (and such is the personal
God of Revelation),--and on this hypothesis the world is not God, but is
distinct from Him, having had a beginning, and being created out of
nothing,--or there is only one supreme form of existence, and the world
is eternal, and not distinct from God; there is absolutely but One, and
this eternal One comprehends all, and is itself all in all; so that
there is no where any real and essential distinction, and even that
which is alleged to exist between evil and good is only a delusion of a
narrow-minded system of Ethics.... Now, the necessity of this choice and
determination _presses urgently upon our own time_, which stands midway
between two worlds. Generally, it is between _these two paths alone_
that the decision is to be made."[118]

We have made the preceding remarks on purpose to show that the
distinctive doctrines of Pantheism, as a system different, in some
respects, from the colder forms of Atheism, demand the careful study of
the Divines and the Philosophers of the present age; and that any
statement of the evidence in favor of the being and perfections of God,
which overlooks the prevalence of these doctrines, or makes only a
cursory reference to them, must be alike defective in itself, and ill
adapted to the real exigencies of European society. Let this be our
apology for attempting, as we now propose, to e