I. DEDUCTIONS FROM CERTAIN FACTS OF HUMAN NATURE AND HUMAN APPLIANCES. I. THE IDEAL REVIVAL OF NATURALISM. 7HEN the brilliant and philanthropic organizer WH of the anti-evangelical sentiments and radical elements of Boston was filling Music Hall to overflowing, uttering his fearful philippics against slavery and the popular religion, he was wont to declare that a revival of religion in this nation was the pressing need of the hour. At that time multitudes who had no sympathy with Orthodox Christianity most heartily responded to the sentiment offered. It was, of course, well understood that Mr. Parker's views of a religious awakening were essentially different from those of the great body of people who bore the name Christian. They involved natural rather than supernatural agencies, and, as near as we recollect, were set forth in the following statement: "The revival that we need will not come all at once, not as the lightning shineth from the east even to the west, not thus, but as the morning comes, little by little. It will come from long continued peace, and the faithful adherence to industrial pursuits and virtuous living." In a word, the revival needed would be, according to Mr. Parker, natural, not supernatural. We presume this sentiment was indorsed by the large society to which it was addressed, and is at present likely enough the view of those who are not unwillingly reckoned as antagonistic to the simple evangelical faith of the Gospel; though surely such ideas of a revival, it would seem, must be entertained with less and less confidence as the years go on, and as the field of religious history is more carefully examined. Thirty years have passed since the bold denunciations of that Music Hall preacher troubled the churches of Boston and New England; and yet, most people feel that we are at present not a day nearer than we then were to this philosophic millennium which Mr. Parker, in all honesty, felt the country needed. For a score of months we have been looking about, and have been appalled at the political corruptions and faithlessness everywhere confronting us; we have turned to the marts of traffic, and the thoroughfares of commerce, and have discovered so great alarm at the frequency and magnitude of the dishonesties practised, that the dollar in hand has been withdrawn or withheld, and our industries have stood paralyzed. Men have walked the streets, troubled not one whit less than they were thirty years ago, and have been all the while wondering what, how, and where the end of these things is to be. All honest people, whatever their faith, have been or are sick at heart, and deeply and sadly have felt the necessity of something for the better. They have said. repeatedly, in the words of Mr. Parker, "A revival of religion in this nation is the pressing need of the hour." But, if the revival must come "little by little," and so "little by little" that no perceptible advance is made in thirty years, then all living must die without the sight of this longed-for reformation, while the existing sloughs and slums of political and commercial corruption and dishonesty, of social infidelities and insecurities, of thieving tramps and brutal murders, must last until the grave shall shield us; nay, God only knows how much longer. We further presume that most people, even of Mr. Parker's school, are agreed as to the essential character of the revival or improvement now needed; nothing, if we mistake not, will avail except a Christian spirit manifesting itself in practical piety; in other words, a revival of religion in political, commercial, and social life is the need of the hour; a revival which shall cause men to love God with all the heart, and their neighbors as themselves. II. THE TENDENCIES OF HUMAN NATURE. On the very outset we are forced to yield the expectation that all the grand changes and reforms desired. will be reached by natural agencies, or, as the case is usually stated, by the inherent forces wrapped up in human nature, or by the latent elements belonging to our modern civilization, or by all these combined. Those who thus believe are doomed to a perpetually recurring disappointment. The normal forces in hu |