It will be denied, indeed, by no one, that religious belief influences moral practice. Both reason and history make doubt on this point impossible. The convictions of a man's heart as to the supreme object of his reverence, and as to the ways in which he ought to show his reverence thereof, necessarily affect for good or ill his entire mind and conduct. The whole moral life takes a different colour according to the religious light which falls upon it. As the valley of the Rhone presents a different aspect when seen from a summit of the Jura and from a peak of the Alps, so the course of human existence appears very different when looked at from different spiritual points of view. Atheism, polytheism, pantheism, theism, cannot regard life and death in the same way, and cannot solve in the same way the problems which they present to the intellect and the heart. These different theories naturally--yea, necessarily--yield different moral results. Now, doubt may be entertained as to whether or not we can legitimately employ the maxim, "By their fruits ye shall know them," in attempting to ascertain the truth or falsity of a theory. The endeavour to support religion by appealing to its utility has been denounced as "moral bribery and subornation of the understanding."[3] But no man, I think, however scrupulous or exacting, can doubt that when one theory bears different moral and social fruits than another, that fact is a valid and weighty reason for inquiring very carefully which of them is true and which false. He who believes, for example, that there is a God, and he who believes that there is no being in the universe higher than himself--he who believes that material force is the source of all things, and he who believes that nature originated in an intelligent, holy, and loving Will,--must look upon the world, upon history, and upon themselves so very differently--must think, feel, and act so very differently--that for every man it must be of supreme importance to know which of these beliefs he is bound in reason to accept and which to reject. [3] By J. S. Mill, in the very essay in which he assailed religion by trying to show that the world had outgrown the need of it. * * * * *