Page:Sphere and Duties of Government.djvu/96

76 to this outward manifestation of perfection,—a desire for union. This development of the religious idea is even true of nations in the lowest grade of civilization; for it is from this very process of conception that, even among the rudest tribes, the chiefs of the people are brought to believe themselves lineally descended from the gods, and destined, after death, to return to them. It is only to be observed that the actual conception of the Divine Nature varies according to the different ideas of perfection which prevail in particular ages and nations. The gods of the remoter ages of Greece and Eome, and those worshiped by our own earliest forefathers, were simply ideals of bodily strength and prowess. When to this view of perfection the idea of sensuous beauty succeeded and gradually became refined, the sensuous personification of beauty was exalted to the throne of Deity; and hence arose what we would designate as the Religion of Art. Further, when men ascended from the sensuous to the purely spiritual—from the beautiful to the good and true, the sum of all moral and intellectual perfection became the high object of their adoration, and religion the property of philosophy. It might perhaps be possible to estimate the comparative worth of the different forms of religion that have prevailed according to this ascending scale, if it were true that religion varied according to nations and sects, and not according to the nature of single individuals. But, as it is, religion is wholly subjective, and depends solely on the manner of individual conception.

When the idea formed of Divinity is the fruit of true spiritual culture, its intimate re-action on the inner perfection is at once beneficial and beautiful. All things assume a new form and meaning in our eyes when regarded as the creatures of forecasting design, and not the capricious handiwork of unreasoning chance. The ideas of wisdom