Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/245

Rh or between the study of Nature and the tracing out of its order, and the systems of belief that claim a religious character, is as much a reality of human experience as the collisions of nations, and just as much a proper subject for the historian.

Dr. Draper has been much reproached for not defining what he means by religion. There is no complaint that he has not defined science, because no need of it is felt; everybody understands what science is. But it is not so with religion. The theological world is full of dispute and contention as to what religion is. It is loudly declared by the theological party that science and religion are in harmony, and then the theological groups fall straightway to battling over the initial question as to what constitutes religion! Each group assumes it to be what its members believe, and what those with different beliefs do not possess. The reverend representative of the Unitarians, Dr. Hill, says of the oldest and most numerous Christian communion: "The hostility of this corrupted Church toward science was no greater than its hostility to religion; religion and science, twin forms of truth, were alike persecuted by this dragon; and it is both an injury and insult to Religion to ascribe to her the evil deeds of those who hate her, and wore her name simply as a cloak for their political ambition and their intolerant pride. For every martyr of science, history can show a thousand martyrs of religion slain by the ecclesiastical powers of Rome." But the representative of the "dragon," at the opposite wing, is ready with his reply to this Unitarian Gentile. Dr. Brownson says: "Christianity teaches that Gentilism is apostacyapostasy [sic] from God and from his truth, and that so far from being his worship it is the worship of devils. We protest, therefore, against the logic that concludes that what it finds true of Gentilism is and must be true of Christianity. We protest also against concluding that, because Protestantism is a congeries of absurdities. Catholicity is unreasonable and false. Gentilism and Protestantism may stand in the same category or be simply varieties of the same species; but they are specifically, generically different from Christianity." And between these two extremes there is a crowd of sects which agree in little else than in dismissing the Catholics and Unitarians to perdition as destitute of all religion! Dr. Draper, it is evident, would have complicated his case to little purpose had he gone into definitions, and thus virtually assumed to decide, among these conflicting claimants, which has the true religion. For historical purposes Dr. Draper was compelled to take broad views, and to recognize as religious all bodies of people who combine and organize for religious ends, profess religious faith, and make claims to religious character, giving prominence in his treatment of the subject to those who have been historically most prominent, and are most responsible for theological resistance to the reception of scientific ideas.

severity of the spelling-school contagion is manifestly abating. This is well, for we are told that public excitements are dangerous to reason, intense and prolonged spasms, religious or social, generally ending in a new accession of recruits for the lunatic asylum. It is an interesting question what degree of fervor, extent, and duration of spelling-matches would be required to reduce the general mind to a condition of imbecility. Life is full of contradictions, and we can rarely go a mile with our logic: to misspell our language is a sin, while to reach the height of orthographic virtue may involve intellectual suicide.

We recollect a wave of excitement