That there is a general drifting away from the old formulas of religious doctrine everybody knows, and yet there is more practical religion in the world to-day than in any previous age. It does not consist in fastings and attendance upon ecclesiastical rites and ordinances; but it takes the form of universal education, of providing homes for friendless infancy and old age, of the prevention of cruelty to children and even to brute animals, of the more rational and humane treatment of lunatics, paupers, and criminals, ameliorating the miseries of prisons and hospitals,—in short, of elevating and improving the condition of universal humanity. These truly religious works do not depend upon any particular statement of religious belief, for all sects and persons of no sect are equally engaged in them. Charities would not cease if all creeds should be abandoned or should be so revised as not to be recognized by the disciples of Calvin and Wesley, and if every priest in the land should henceforth give up the mummeries and puerilities of the Dark Ages. Religion, as the “enthusiasm of humanity,” the cultivation of all the virtues, and the practice of the highest morality growing out of the inalienable rights of man in all the relations of life, is a fixed fact. It is a natural endowment, coeval with humanity in its development and progress, and is as absolutely indestructible as manhood itself. So far from being true is the assumption that religion would be imperilled by the exposure of the false dogmas of theology and the heathenish rites and superstitious ceremonies of ecclesiasticism, it is clear to many minds that the myths of dogmatic theology and the absurdities of primitive ages are the chief obstacles in the way of the free course of true religion; and it may safely be affirmed that the distinguishing dogmas of the dominant theology, Catholic and Protestant, as will hereafter be shown, are essentially demoralizing and logically _tend_ to undermine and corrupt public virtue. It is not intended to affirm that churches and theologians do no good and that their entire influence is bad. They teach much that is humane in principle and moral in practice, and so do good for society. Nevertheless, it is true that much of the rotten morality of the times can be philosophically traced to the influence of a false theology. The main dogmas of Romish and orthodox Protestant creeds are false, and it is absurd to suppose that a pure system of public virtue can be founded upon ignorance, superstition, and falsehood. But, after all, we are asked, Does it make any odds what one believes if he is only sincere in his faith?