if death comes as the close of a complete life, after vital force is spent, it is natural and not to be regretted, though parting with one beloved is painful. "Dilemma" cannot here yield any positiv truth.

A

SECTION XIV.

MORAL TENDENCY OF THE RECEIVED BELIEF.

AMONG average Englishmen the idea prevails, that unless a man believes "After Death is the Judgment " his oath is worthless. It is assumed that Fear of Punishment alone deters from Wrong, and Hope of Reward alone prompts to Right. This stupid error, this degrading view of man, is heard from the same persons who talk high of human nature as ennobled by an immortal soul. Many a magistrate or judge has scolded out of court with rude insult a witness whose evidence would hav damaged a hostile party, when this party has cunningly objected that the witness had no belief in Judgment to come. Such wise-acre judges would hav ruled that the solemn word of Joel, Isaiah or Jeremiah was not worth a straw. I try to formulate their doctrin as accrediting the tenet of future life; thus: "Belief in a Future "Judgment is essential to make men truthful: therefor "the belief is true."

But it is not true that truth is spoken so much through fear of Future Punishment, as through hatred of Falsehood and love of Justice; nor in general hav the worst criminals rejected their national creed, whether it threaten them with persecution by Furies in old Greece, or by Devils in Christendom. I myself essayed an argument : "The more spiritual Religion becomes, the more does "belief in a Future Life gain assent." But I am less

able than I was to assert this to be certain truth; moreover, unwelcome facts of opposit tendency hav to be considered. To this side of the question I pass.

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Timidly I mention first a weakness widely prevalent, as must be judged by popular phrases. In the "next "world" God is supposed to be nearer to us than in the present. To die, is called, "going into the immediate presence of God." This very prevalent idea tends to bedim or obliterate the true Hebrew realizing of the Divine Presence at every moment, and by simple faith "seeing Him who is invisible." I am quite aware that this is by no means a necessary result of believing in a Future World. Yet it seems to be a very common tendency, and in so far, adverse to spiritual life. "Enoch

"walked with God" is surely now accepted as alone describing worthy religion.

SECTION XV.

PRIDE ENGENDERS CRUELTY.

WHEN among reasons which weigh on the Christian (as opposed to the old Hebrew) side, I said that the belief in human immortality ENNOBLES MAN, a Reviewer seized eagerly on this avowal as sufficient in itself to decide him in favor of the belief. He had me on his side! I am since taken aback as to this "ennoblement." An eminent priest in Rome has preached with contempt of those who object to the torture of brute animals. Men (says he) must not be tortured; for, they hav immortal souls. Other animals ar not immortal; therefor, they hav no rights that man needs to respect. They may be tortured at his pleasure.--Now if this were the doctrin of one man, it might be passed by as an eccentric insanity.

But I learn that it is really CATHOLIC doctrin,* and that historically it has leavened the vulgar Italians with dire callousness to the sufferings of the lower races. Thus, as, in common belief, princes "born in the purple" ar prone to be, through royal pride, selfish and apathetic to human suffering, so the vulgar masses of mankind ar, not "ennobled" by a belief that their souls ar immortal, but simply made disdainful to the docile creatures on whom they look down. Disdainful? nay, but heartless; though these inferior races hav nerves as sensitiv as the human, and share the labors of life with their unfeeling tyrants.

SECTION XVI.

CRUELTIES FROM WILD FANCY.

SOME press me with the great enlargement of the mind rising out of a belief in human immortality. Doubtless all dwelling on infinity givs width to thought, whether in Time or Space, whether in the starry heaven, the boundless ocean, the black depths of an unfathomable crevasse, or in strata which suggest Geological measures of time. The nobler and more cultured minds rise higher by such contemplations. With them a severe logic checks the riot of Fancy, and of Poetry which apes Philosophy. But the case is widely different with the uninstructed, to whom the indulgence of Fancy becomes a Frenzy.

I must not shrink from pressing historical facts, which attest (however disagreeable to me and to my readers)

I since very gladly learn, how Cardinal Manning puts it. Animals (he admits) have no rights; but to torture them is wrong, because it demoralizes man.

that to barbarous man a belief in human immortality is on a large scale a depraving influence, propagating cruelty by a contempt of human life. This takes two courses,contempt of one's own life, which tends to reckless bravery in war, and contempt of the lives of other men, which leads to a sanctification of murders. Perhaps the noblest tribes of barbarians ar the very men who hav been possessed with sanguinary delusions; rather, their contempt of life has made them to be at once bravest and reputed noblest.

Herodotus tells us of a tribe of Getans (that is, Goths, according to Grimm) on the Danube, who believed themselves immortal. He calls them signally noble and just. Every five years they sent a messenger to heaven, to acquaint their God of their special needs. The process was as follows. They used to fling a man aloft, and catch him on three spear-points. If he died quickly, it was a good omen; but if he happened to survive, they reviled him as wicked, and had to kill a second victim as his substitute. No doubt these Getans were brave, and with barbarians bravery is a chief virtue; but when thus excited, it diffuses cruel superstition more widely. We may make sure that the victims who perished were accounted meritorious,--perhaps as Quirinus or Hercules, drinkers of nectar at the heavenly banquet.

But this Getan superstition is dwarfed by the Funeral for every chief of the Imperial Scythians. Could he who had held so lofty a station here be less than a king in the Spirit-World? Every priest or magician, every poet, was sure to say, no!-Well; as a king, he must hav a body-guard and a royal household. Herodotus givs us grotesque and ghastly details, more than we need here to quote. Fifty young men and fifty horses of finest breed ar killed for his military escort. Besides, he needs a wife, a cook, a cupbearer, a page, an adjutant;

-and other horses, apparently for his personal riding. All these ar killed to accompany him. Such atrocities might be disbelieved, had we not confirmations from similar facts elsewhere.

In 1661, the Jesuit Fathers Grueber and Dorville undertook to travel by land from China to India, and passed in Thibet through a desolate region called Tangut, where they found a religious practice prevalent. A sacred boy called Buth, equipped with sword, quiver and arrows, and with numerous standards stuck about him, sallied forth [on certain holy days only, we presume] to kill at pleasure whomever he met. No one resisted him; for to be thus slain was believed to be a signal blessing to them in a better world.-[Hugh Murray, Travels in Asia, 1820.]

Most persons hav heard of the Customs of Dahomey, which perhaps ar declining under European influence. The Dahomeyans ar described as tall, graceful, brave and devotedly obedient to their king. At his death, as used to be narrated, the guards issued from the palace and killed whomever they met. This was a First-fruits. Afterwards, as a Wesleyan missionary tells, deliberate

sacrifices" of numerous men, women, beasts and fowls were made for the fancy of sending spirit messages to the soul of the deceased monarch, and (if the missionary be correct) to the spirits of the beasts and fowls. If this interpretation be uncertain, it is yet clear that as soon as the idea of the "Spirit-World" is accepted, concerning which absolutely nothing is known or knowable, wild Fancy has deadly power to override Justice and Humanity. Dahomey is not a singular case in the modern world. Similar atrocities of superstition ar reported from other parts of Africa; and in America the killing of a chief's war-horse to secure a mount for him in the World of Spirits hints to us how easy the step is