The testimony of church history and the experience of time testify, that the million, under all degrees of light, shrink from the difficult and philosophical idea of the real Jehovah of the Bible; and form, instead, the easy and natural image of a limited, partial, changeable God, whom importunity can easily induce to swerve from his purpose; and who is, in many respects, such a being as themselves. It is the embodied conception of their own narrow views, assigned to a local habitation. To him the countless millions of other lands, and other forms of worship, are not, like them, as children. Unable to rise to the Supreme Being, they have brought Him down to them. A few minds, from age to age, elevated by endowment and circumstances far above their cotemporaries, have not only embraced, in common with others, the easy and simple sentiments of Him, which the heart entertains, but have raised their contemplations so high, as to behold Him in the light of truth--have seen Him, in some sense, _as He is_--have been filled with awe and confidence, in the view of his immutability, and with filial and cheerful resignation, in seeing in the universe, its order, mutations and variety, in the mixed condition of man, in a word, in every feature of the natural and moral creation, as in a mirror, a perfect transcript of the divine perfections--a pattern of an archetype without a shade of defect. Instead of bringing the Divine Being down to them, they have raised themselves up to Him. The veil, that screens his glory from the feeble vision of the multitude, has been removed. Being assured, that He has made of one blood all nations, that dwell on the earth, they have seen it to be impossible, that He should look upon one portion of his children with more favor than on another. They have seen, in the superior light and advantages of one part of the species over another, not the indication, of what is technically called _special favor_, but the natural result of the operation of his universal laws. They have seen, that if the inhabitants of one region are enabled to rise higher in the intellectual scale, and pay him a more spiritual and worthy homage--the simple inhabitants of _distant, barbarous isles_ have an organization admitting them to be as happy as their natures will admit, and as full of enjoyment as their measure can contain. If they are unable to offer an intellectual worship, the service of their minds, their hearts are formed for fervent admiration and worship of the thunderer--the being, who raises fruits and flowers, and hangs out his bow on their clouds. They see, in all this, _that God, also, hath set one thing over against another_. Note 47, page 144.