That middle ground I now succeeded in finding. It is at once delicate and dangerous to speak of one's own spiritual condition, or of the emotional sentiments on which one's conclusions regarding it are often so doubtfully founded. Egotism in the religious form is perhaps more tolerated than in any other; but it is not on that account less perilous to the egotist himself. There need be, however, less delicacy in speaking of one's beliefs than of one's feelings; and I trust I need not hesitate to say, that I was led to see at this time, through the instrumentality of my friend, that my theologic system had previously wanted a central object, to which the heart, as certainly as the intellect, could attach itself; and that the true centre of an efficient _Christianity_ is, as the name ought of itself to indicate, "the Word made Flesh." Around this central sun of the Christian system--appreciated, however, not as a _doctrine_ which is a mere abstraction, but as a Divine Person--so truly Man, that the affections of the human heart can lay hold upon Him, and so truly God, that the mind, through faith, can at all times and in all places be brought into direct contact with Him--all that is really religious takes its place in a subsidiary and subordinate relation. I say subsidiary and subordinate. The Divine Man is the great attractive centre, the sole gravitating point of a system which owes to Him all its coherency, and which would be but a chaos were He away. It seems to be the existence of the human nature in this central and paramount object that imparts to Christianity, in its subjective character, its peculiar power of influencing and controlling the human mind. There may be men who, through a peculiar idiosyncrasy of constitution, are capable of loving, after a sort, a mere abstract God, unseen and inconceivable; though, as shown by the air of sickly sentimentality borne by almost all that has been said and written on the subject, the feeling in its true form must be a very rare and exceptional one. In all my experience of men, I never knew a genuine instance of it The love of an abstract God seems to be as little natural to the ordinary human constitution as the love of an abstract sun or planet. And so it will be found, that in all the religions that have taken strong hold of the mind of man, the element of a vigorous humanity has mingled, in the character of its gods, with the theistic element. The gods of classic mythology were simply powerful men set loose from the tyranny of the physical laws; and, in their purely human character, as warm friends and deadly enemies, they were both feared and loved. And so the belief which bowed at their shrines ruled the old civilized world for many centuries. In the great ancient mythologies of the East--Buddhism and Brahmanism--both very influential forms of belief--we have the same elements, genuine humanity added to god-like power. In the faith of the Moslem, the human character of the