have stated must be the first stage in the business. With this unsolved, all other religious discussion is idle trifling.
This is why Dissent, as a religious movement of our day, would be almost droll, if it were not, from the tempers and actions it excites, so extremely irreligious. But what is to be said for men, aspiring to deal with the cause of religion, who either cannot see that what the people now require is a religion of the Bible quite different from that which any of the churches or sects supply; or who, seeing this, spend their energies in fiercely battling as to whether the Church should be a national institution or no? The question, at the present juncture, is in itself so absolutely unimportant! The thing is, to recast religion. If this is done, the new religion will be the national one; if it is not done, the separating the nation, in its collective and corporate character, from religion, will not do it. It is as if men's minds were much unsettled about mineralogy, and the teachers of it were at variance, and no teacher was convincing, and many people, therefore, were disposed to throw the study of mineralogy overboard altogether. What would naturally be the first business for every friend of the study? Surely, to establish on safe grounds the value of the study, and to put its claims in a new light where they could no longer be denied. But if he acted as our Dissenters act in religion, what would he do? Give himself, heart and soul, to a furious crusade against keeping the Government School of Mines!
Meanwhile, however, there is now an end to all fear of doing harm by gainsaying the received theology of the churches and sects. For this theology is itself now a
