"historical" religion, however contemptible, that did not make its thousands of proselytes. Man has been easily led to embrace the most absurd systems of mythology and superstition, and is willing even to go to death for them. So far from venturing to set up the claims of the internal oracle in competition, man all but uniformly takes his religion from his fathers (no matter what), just as he takes his property; only the former, however worthless, he holds as infinitely the more precious. Even when he surrenders it, he still surrenders it to some other "historical" religion: it is to that he turns. Such men as Mr. Newman and Mr. Parker--though every one can see that their system too has been derived from without, that it is, in fact, nothing but a distorted Christianity--may be numbered by units. The vast bulk of mankind are unresisting victims of the "traditional" and "historical"; nay, rather eagerly ask for it, and willingly submit to it. What, then, can I infer, but either, 1st, that this vaunted internal faculty which supersedes all necessity of an external revelation is a delusion, and exists only as a vague and imperfect tendency; or, 2dly, that, as Christians say, it lies in ruins, and needs that external revelation, the possibility of which is denied; or, 3dly, that God has somehow made a great mistake in mingling the various elements of man's composition, and miscalculating the overmastering power of the "historical" and "traditional "; or, 4thly, that man, having the original faculty still bright and strong, and that brightness and strength sufficient for his guidance and support, is more hopelessly, deliberately, and diabolically wicked, in thus everywhere and always substituting error for truth, and superstition for religion,--in thus giving the historical and traditional the uniform ascendency over the moral and spiritual,--than even the most desperate Calvinist ever ventured to represent him! Surely he is the most detestable beast that ever crawled on the face of the earth, and, in a new and more portentous sense, "loves darkness rather than light." The fact is, that--so far from having even a suspicion that an external revelation is useless or impossible--he, as already said, greedily seeks for it, and devours it.