when compared with that faith which teaches us to regard God as our
"Father in heaven," and that "hope which is full of immortality." It is
worse, however, than dreary; it is destructive of all religion and of
all morality. If it be an avowed antagonist to Christianity, it is not
less hostile to Natural Theology and to Ethical Science. It consecrates
error and vice, as being, equally with truth and virtue, necessary and
beneficial manifestations of the "infinite." It is a system of
Syncretism, founded on the idea that error is only an incomplete truth,
and maintaining that truth must necessarily be developed by error, and
virtue by vice. According to this fundamental law of "human progress,"
Atheism itself may be providential; and the axiom of a Fatalistic
Optimism--"Whatever is, is best"--must be admitted equally in regard to
truth and error, to virtue and vice.

It may be further observed, that modern Pantheism, whether in its
Material or Ideal form, is nothing else than the revival of some of the
earliest and most inveterate Principles of Paganism,--the same Paganism
which still flourishes among the "theosophic" dreamers of India, and
which exhibits its practical fruits in the horrors of Hindoo
superstition. For Pantheism, although repeatedly revived and exhibited
in new forms, has made no real progress since the time when it was first
taught in the Vedanta system, and sublimed in the schools of Alexandria.
Christianity, which encountered and triumphed over it in her youth, can
have nothing to fear from it in her mature age,[144] provided only that
she be faithful to herself, and spurn every offered compromise. But
there must be no truce, and no attempt at conciliation between the two.
The Pantheists of Germany have made the most impudent claims to the
virtual sanction of Christianity; they have even dared to make use of
Bible terms in a new sense, and have spoken of Revelation, Inspiration,
Incarnation, Redemption, Atonement, and Regeneration, in such a way as
to adapt them to the Pantheistic hypothesis. Common honesty is outraged,
and the conscience of universal humanity offended, by the conduct of
individuals--some of them wearing the robes of the holy ministry--who
have substituted the dreams of Pantheism for the doctrines of Jesus
Christ, and assailed, both from the pulpit and the press, the sacred
cause which they had solemnly vowed to maintain. But even in Germany
itself a powerful reaction has commenced; and t