Page:Calvinism, an address delivered at St. Andrew's, March 17, 1871.djvu/31

 held, may become more mischievous than salutary. And this is owing to the fatal distinction of which I spoke just now, which seems to have an irresistible tendency to shape itself, in civilised societies, between religious and moral duties. With the help of this distinction it becomes possible for a man, as long as he avoids gross sins, to neglect every one of his positive obligations—to be careless, selfish, unscrupulous, indifferent to everything but his own pleasures—and to imagine all the time that his condition is perfectly satisfactory, and that he can look forward to what is before him without the slightest uneasiness. All accounts represent the Egyptians as an eminently religious people. No profanity was tolerated there, no scepticism, no insolent disobedience to the established priesthood. If a doubt ever crossed the mind of some licentious philosopher as to the entire sacredness of the stainless Apis, if ever a question forced itself on him whether the Lord of heaven and earth could really be incarnated in the stupidest of created beasts, he kept his counsels to himself, if he was not shocked at his own impiety. The priests, who professed supernatural powers—the priests, who were in communication with the gods themselves—they possessed the keys of the sacred mysteries, and what was Philosophy that it should lift its voice against them? The word of the priest— nine parts a charlatan, and one part, perhaps, himself imposed on—was absolute. He knew the counsels of Osiris, he knew that the question which would be asked at the dread tribunal was not whether a man had been just