best men may be cross-questioned in the spirit of antagonism. We may come not so much eager to gain the wisdom of the wise as to prove their folly. There is an air of brilliancy and bravery in characterizing the highest maxims of the past as ancient dogmas and obsolete superstitions; an aspect of breadth, liberality, and glory in breaking with creeds, formularies, and settled opinions of whatever kind, to range in all the freedom of sentiment or, as the case may be, of indifference; and our generation has made large contributions to this kind of latter-day glory. Philosophic skepticisms are supplemented by theological surrenders. We have driven before the wind and drifted in the fog long enough once more to take our soundings, correct our compass, and set our sails by some celestial observation.

And here at length we find our celestial observation. He, the Son of God that came down from heaven and is in heaven, solemnly assures the men who hear him that they must believe him to be what he professed to be, believe his representations of himself and his work, and so accept him, or die in their sins. And he presses them even sternly—"If I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words. Ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God." The fact that is clearly involved in these sayings of our Lord is

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN FOR THEIR RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES.

It will be understood, of course, that the range of

the responsibility varies with the opportunity. The possessor of the gospel is answerable for more than the Jew, and the Jew than the Gentile; but every man. within his sphere is held responsible by his Maker for accepting the divine truth that lay fairly before him. It will also be understood that we speak chiefly of fundamental principles. Vital consequences hinge on vital points, although fullness of blessing comes from fullness of acceptance. We will therefore proceed to consider first the necessity, secondly, the propriety, and thirdly, the revealed fact that God will hold men thus responsible.

I. There is a necessity that God hold men responsible for their religious principles. If he would exercise any government over either conduct or affections, he must require substantial rectitude of religious views. A man cannot be wrong in the fundamentals of belief and be right in the fundamentals of religious character and life.

For, in the first place, the life and conduct will inevitably sink to the level of the deepest convictions. Men assimilate to their ideals, not always upward, but always certainly downward. A man whose views of excellence are degrading must be a degraded man. Alexander with Achilles for his model, and Charles of Sweden with Alexander for his, will be men of war. The Greek city where Venus was the patron goddess was noted for luxury and licentiousness; and the modern devotees of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, might be expected to be what they are,

professional murderers. It was certain that the old Spartan ideal must form, as it did, a nation of unlettered and stubborn fighters. When fighters. When the Chinese mandarin Ting folded his arms and told the French traveler that "women have no souls," we know how it happened that missionaries found that two fifths of all the infant daughters around Amoy were destroyed at birth. The man who holds it right to falsify when his interest requires it you are sure will live up, or down, to his principle. One who maintains the theory of "free love" is a moral leper who shall never taint the air of your home. And could we find a being whose settled convictions reversed all the obligations of the decalogue, we should find a fiend. To expect a right life and conduct with fundamentally wrong standards is a practical absurdity.

But, further, the affections will be honorable or dishonorable to God as are the views they involve; and he must require right views if he demands an acceptable love. A generation ago there was heard from a brilliant man in a Boston pulpit the notorious statement that "the only true God hears the prayer, whether called Brahma, Pan, or Lord, or called by no name at all," and that "many an Indian who bowed down to wood and stone, many a grim-faced Calmuck who worshiped the god of storms, many a Grecian peasant who did homage to Phoebus Apollo, many a savage with his hands all smeared over with human sacrifice . . . shall sit down in the kingdom of God with Moses and Socrates, and Zoroaster and Jesus." But the

pagan Plutarch answered this Christian preacher eighteen centuries in advance: "I had a great deal rather that men should say that there was no such man as Plutarch than that they should say that there was one Plutarch that would eat his children as soon as they were born"— as was said of the god Saturn. In other words, the ascription of a degraded character to God and the worship of him in that character must be more hateful to him even than sheer atheism. Is it not so? The esteem which a man should profess for you or me, while and because he supposed us to be vile and low like himself, is an attachment which our souls would spurn. And unless God have a lower self-respect than you or I, he must be as well pleased with the worship of those who ascribe to him the traits of Pan, Apollo, or Apollyon as with the direct worship and service of Satan. They that worship him, says that wonderful summary of the Saviour, "must worship him in spirit and in truth," in conformity to the truth of his being, as a righteous God.

Conversely, if men are in no degree responsible for their religious views, they cannot be held responsible for affections or conduct. For it is impossible that one who does not hold certain views should feel and act as he would if he held them; and before God and man he

Concede him that, and

might plead that impossibility. he has but to shut his eyes to the evidence of all unwelcome truth and duty, and go on in irresponsibility and disobedience. It lies within his reach, but he will not reach it. No claim can be laid upon him unless by

miraculous methods in order to ensure right opinions; and then this irresponsible man has but to stop his ears to the voice from heaven or close his eyes to the visible sign, and the claims of God have failed to reach him. Or he may deny the heavenly origin alike of audible word and visible sign, and the claims they should authenticate are lost upon him. Just so it was done of old. When the voice came from heaven they said that it thundered; and when Christ did many miracles they said: "This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub." Now if it were innocent for them to hold that opinion, it was innocent for them to reject the Son of God. With those views they could not do otherwise. So also if the views of the atheist, deist, and idolater are innocent, then are their scoffing and blasphemy and devil worship also innocent. No high affection can spring from low thought. if our Creator lays no hand of authority on the religious principles of the world, then must he be content to leave its religious affections and practices in their past and present chaos and look with equal complacency on the devoted martyr at the stake and the man of wrath that lights the fire. If, therefore, there be any course of conduct or exercise of affection which God would require of his creatures, he must even insist on those opinions without which they cannot take place. How can a man love God who does not believe there is a loveworthy God; repent of sin, who does not think he is a sinner; trust in Christ, who disbelieves Christ's saving power; pray to God, with no belief in prayer?

And