Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/172

 164 INTRODUCTION

nothing foolish or unreasonable which is true ; but, as for truth, nothing with me is true which is not proven.

As to the nature of Christ, I think it not important to discuss, nor indeed any other doctrinal point. The several hundred opinions of the several hundred religious sects present to me nothing of a scientific character, and each one must be left to explain as deduction and inclination lead him. I perceive, however, that the Bible claims Christ to be not a man, but God, in short, one of the three persons of the Trinity ; and, if I were a Christian, I suppose I should so believe, I do not, however, see much in the conduct or conversation of Christians about me to give me much re- spect for their religion. Their priests were required to be poor, but the Catholics alone have kept their priests so, and these only the inferior ones. The Quakers, to be sure, come nearer the demands of their creed, speaking to one another as "the Spirit moves them " ; so their phrase goes. But, as to leading sects, preaching is as much a trade among them as is any other, and I should think that, if their Master were to come again upon the earth, they would be the first to stone him. At least, I think no sane man would dare to drive money-changers out of our temples at this day.

The Catholic religion seems to me to be in several re- spects most in accordance with the Christian Bible one : in the stress laid on both faith and works as against Lutherans, excepting, however, works of supererogation ; another in the close union between the priests and the people, whose poverty they are forced to imitate (the chief source of their influence), and it was for the poor, that is, for the people, the Book declares itself to have been made ; third, the itinerant character of the clergy, as being in harmony with the whole spirit of the Christian religion,

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