you please, that an instinct of religion
or superstition belongs to the human mind, and that the different forms
which this instinct assumes depend upon various circumstances and
accidents of history and climate; but I am not sure that the religion of
the Jews was superior to that of the Sabaeans who worshipped the stars,
or the ancient Persians who adored the sun as the visible symbol of
divine power, or the eastern nations who in the various forms of the
visible universe worshipped the powers and energies of the Divinity. I
feel like the ancient Romans with respect to toleration; I would give a
place to all the gods in my Pantheon, but I would not allow the followers
of Brahmah or of Christ to quarrel about the modes of incarnation or the
superiority of the attributes of their trien God.

_Amb_.--You have mistaken me, Onuphrio, if you think I am shocked by your
opinions; I have seen too much of the wanderings of human reason ever to
be surprised by them, and the views you have adopted are not uncommon
amongst young men of very superior talents, who have only slightly
examined the evidences of revealed religion. But I am glad to find that
you have not adopted the code of infidelity of many of the French
revolutionists and of an English school of sceptics, who find in the
ancient astronomy all the germs of the worship of the Hebrews, who
identify the labours of Hercules with those of the Jewish heroes, and who
find the life, death and resurrection of the Messiah in the history of
the solar day. You, at least, allow the existence of a peculiar
religious instinct, or, as you are pleased to call it, superstition,
belonging to the human mind, and I have hopes that upon this foundation
you will ultimately build up a system of faith not unworthy a philosopher
and a Christian. Man, with whatever religious instincts he was created,
was intended to communicate with the visible universe by sensations and
act upon it by his organs, and in the earliest state of society he was
more particularly influenced by his gross senses. Allowing the existence
of a supreme Intelligence and His beneficent intentions towards man, the
ideas of His presence which He might think fit to impress upon the mind,
either for the purpose of veneration, or of love, of hope or fear, must
have been in harmony with the general train of His sensations--I am not
sure that I make myself intelligible. The same infinite power which in
an instant could create a