der new names, the old pagan
superstitions still lingered, as if their hold on the heart of man were
too firm to be driven out by any doctrine, however new or true. In the
middle ages, before a Bacon had led forth the sciences from their house
of bondage--before men had ceased to theorize, and to believe alone in
facts, and the truths facts utter, what confidence, for instance, was
given to that pagan science, or jargon, for it ought not to be called a
science, named astrology. The old heathen gods still remained. Jupiter
and Mars, Saturn, and Venus, and Mercury, were still the arbiters of
human destinies. Take up the great philosopher of that age--Cardan for
instance--and you shall read in him more of the mysterious influences of
the heathen's Jupiter than of the Christian's God. Every educated man
exclaimed in language as plain, though not, perhaps, so poetical, as that
of Max Piccolomini, that--

'Still
Doth the old instinct bring back the old names,
And to yon starry world they now are gone,
Spirits or gods that used to share this earth
With man as with their friend; and to the lover
Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky
Shoot influence down, and even at this day
'T is Jupiter who brings whate'er is great,
And Venus who brings everything that's fair.'

Something like this in the Christian world prevails. Thus is it the Old
Testament binds with iron grasp men who profess to take their religion
from the New. They tell you the law was the schoolmaster--that it was
the shadow of good things to come, and yet for all that they do and plan,
the Old Testament is their perpetual precedent. Instead of the
recognised version, 'All Scripture is given for instruction,' some of the
good people we have referred to seemed as if they read confusion. The
old Commonwealth men blundered terribly in this way; but every age has
had men guilty of similar blunders. Poor Granville Sharpe had an
interview with Mr. Pitt, to plead the cause of humanity, and wasted the
golden opportunity by attempting to explain to that great Minister--to
whom the explanation was all unintelligible--the meaning of the little
horn in Daniel. In spite of Christianity, men still cling to Jewish
rites and Jewish creeds, as if the Temple of Solomon still wore its
ancient splendour, as if the seed of Abraham still enjoyed their sacred
birthright, as if the sceptre had not departed from Judah, and Shilo