a spirit of serious praise. Some circuitous form, commending the correctness of a man, περι τα θεια, _in respect of divine things_, becomes requisite; for all the direct terms, expressing the religious temper, are preoccupied by a taint of scorn. The word όσιος, means _pious_,--not as regards the gods, but as regards the dead; and even είσεβης, though not used sneeringly, is a world short of our word 'religious.' This condition of language we need not wonder at: the language of life must naturally receive, as in a mirror, the realities of life. Difficult it is to maintain a just equipoise in any moral habits, but in none so much as in habits of religious demeanor under a Pagan [that is, a degrading] religion. To be a coward, is base: to be a sycophant, is base: but to be a sycophant in the service of cowardice, is the perfection of baseness: and yet this was the brief analysis of a devotee amongst the ancient Romans. Now, considering that the word _religion_ is originally Roman, [probably from the Etruscan,] it seems probable that it presented the idea of religion under some one of its bad aspects. Coleridge must quite have forgotten this Paganism of the word, when he suggested as a plausible idea, that originally it had presented religion under the aspect of a coercion or restraint. Morality having been viewed as the prime restraint or obligation resting upon man, then Coleridge thought that religion might have been viewed as a _religatio_, a reiterated restraint, or secondary obligation. This is ingenious, but it will not do. It is cracked in the ring. Perhaps as many as three objections might be mustered to such a derivation: but the last of the three is conclusive. The ancients never _did_ view morality as a mode of obligation: I affirm this peremptorily; and with the more emphasis, because there are great consequences suspended upon that question.] What, then, is religion? Decomposed into its elements, as they are found in Christianity, how many _powers_ for acting on the heart of man, does, by possibility, this great agency include? According to my own view, four.[Footnote: there are _six_, in one sense, of religion: viz. 5_thly_, corresponding moral affections; 6_thly_, a suitable life. But this applies to religion as _subjectively possessed_ by a man, not to religion as _objectively contemplated_. ] I will state them, and number them. 1st. A form of worship, a _cultus_. 2dly. An idea of God; and (pointing the analysis to Christianity in particular) an idea not purified merely from ancient pollutions, but recast and absolutely born again.