ound wanting. The governing class
of China, for example, have long been familiar with the
metaphysics of Spinoza. They have also carried out the
social principles of M. Comte upon the largest possible
scale. For ages they have been what people of the present
day are wishing to become in Europe, with this difference
only, that the heathen legislator who had lost all faith in
God attempted to redress the wrongs and elevate the moral
status of his subjects by the study of political science, or
devising some new scheme of general sociology; while the
positive philosopher of the present day, who has relapsed
into the same positions, is in every case rejecting a
religious system which has proved itself the mightiest of
all civilisers, and the constant champion of the rights and
dignity of men. He offers in the stead of Christianity a
specious phase of paganism, by which the nineteenth century
after Christ may be assimilated to the golden age of Mencius
and Confucius; or, in other words, may consummate its
religious freedom, and attain the highest pinnacle of human
progress, by reverting to a state of childhood and of moral
imbecility.'

Few serious-minded persons will like the temper of this paragraph. The
history of ancient religion is too important, too sacred a subject to
be used as a masked battery against modern infidelity. Nor should a
Christian Advocate ever condescend to defend his cause by arguments
such as a pleader who is somewhat sceptical as to the merits of his
case, may be allowed to use, but which produce on the mind of the
Judge the very opposite effect of that which they are intended to
produce. If we want to understand the religions of antiquity, we must
try, as well as we can, to enter into the religious, moral, and
political atmosphere of the ancient world. We must do what the
historian does. We must become ancients ourselves, otherwise we shall
never understand the motives and meaning of their faith. Take one
instance. There are some nations who have always regarded death with
the utmost horror. Their whole religion may be said to be a fight
against death, and the chief object of their prayers seems to be a
long life on earth. The Persian clings to life with intense tenacity,
and the same feeling exists among the Jews. Other nations, on the
contrary, regard death in a different light. Death is to them a