Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/197

 doubting, but earnest and devoted spirits who merely ask us not to confound supernaturalism with religion. Let us remember that, so far, no man of science has pronounced in favour of the resurrection of the dead; let us not, then, turn anxious and enquiring souls away by passionately insisting on belief in such a dogma.

And when we have set aside the strange, the thaumaturgic elements in the story, how immensely valuable is the remanet! The Herald Angels, as I have remarked, will still press on us the duty of goodwill to men, still the Sacred Page will warn us to be as meek and lowly as our social positions permit, still we shall give alms to the poor, not, it is true, after the demoralising and degrading fashion of the East, but in such taxation as a progressive government may think best. And, after all, perhaps, the old ideal of the union of Church and State may receive a new meaning in our day; little by little, it may be, technical, mechanical religion may tend to disappear, and the religion of the future may turn out to be simply a name for