And many others. Clergymen, Laymen and Lady Writers. The Proprietor would inform the subscribers and readers of this Magazine, that it will be conducted this year by Rev. John H. Morison D. D., Editor. Assisted by Rev. E. H. Sears, with other distinguished Clergymen of the Denomination as Contributors, we hope to carry the Monthly to a high position, as a Religious Magazine and Theological Review. Each No. will contain one or more articles written expressly for the Review, expressing the highest Christian thought, to which the Periodical is pledged. Also a Sermon, with a variety of short articles in prose and poetry of a religious and practical character, which may meet the wants of families. The Department of TOPICS OF THE MONTH, will contain a brief Record of our Religious Times, selected from Magazines and Papers of different denominations. THE RANDOM READINGS, will comprise short articles, original and selected. By E. H. SEARS. New Publications.-Books sent to the Editors will be reviewed, and a number of the magazine containing the notices sent to the Author or Publisher. All communications for the work must be addressed to the Editor, care of the Proprietor. ADVERTISEMENTS. We shall be pleased to receive advertisements from our subscribers and friends, which will be inserted on very favorable terms, and the Magazine sent to all Advertisers FREE, who desire it, during the term of the advertisement. One advantage in this mode of advertising, is that periodicals of this character are not destroyed, as newspapers are, but preserved through the year or longer, if not bound into volumes. Published the first of every month in numbers averaging one hundred pages each, which will give twelve hundred pages a year, - -two large Royal Octavo Volumes well printed, on fine paper and new type. Subscribers will be furnished with the back volumes, neatly bound in cloth, in exchange for the old numbers, by paying the cost of binding. Terms.-Five Dollars per Annum. Singl: Numbers, 50 Cents. Two Copies to one address, $4.50 each, CLUBS.-The Magazine with Littell's Living Age, $9.00 20 00 12.00 66 Atlantic Monthly, 8.00 8.00 Terms, $5.00 per Annum, payable in Advance. Single Numbers 50 Cents. THE Religious Magazine AND Monthly Review. JUNE, 1872. REV. JOHN H. MORISON, D. D. Editor. "THE CHURCH HEARETH NONE BUT CHRIST."— Martin Luther. BOSTON: LEONARD C. BOWLES, PROPRIETOR. NO. 36 BROMFIELD STREET, Room No. 13. Second Flight. THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. By Rev. Thomas Timmins CONFLICT. From the German of Betti Paoli. S. C. R. Christianity and Modern Thought. The Life that Now Is. Magi- con. Paul of Tarsus. Laicus. Studies in Poetry and Philosophy. THE RELIGIOUS MAGAZINE AND MONTHLY REVIEW. VOL. XLVII. -JUNE, 1872. - No. 6. THE PERSONAL GOD. BY HENRY C. DELONG. We are accustomed to look upon Theism as the highest result at which the religious faculty has arrived. Towards that we see it struggling through all the stages of fetichism, nature-worship, idolatry, and polytheism. When it reaches Theism, the conception of one God, we feel that the universe of matter and man is reduced to unity, and we have the satisfaction of an intelligible conception. To its support there come at once the visions of the seers of all ages and races, and our own highest states when, in the order and majesty of the physical world or in the revealed depths of the human spirit, we become immediately conscious of God. But religion as a faith must have somewhat more than exalted moods to offer in its own behalf, albeit they are the intensest and most sacred; and religion as a science—if it shall ever attain that dignity-must have veritable facts for its basis, and in the court of reason show reasons for its affirmation that God is a Reality. The idea of God surely is a common possession; for we can trace it through the civilized and barbarous states of man. That it is universal can no longer be affirmed, since careful authorities assure us there are entire tribes and races who have no conception of it. They believe in and fear beings stronger than themselves, but the idea of God includes more than that; for the dog or horse has for man reverence of that kind. The idea of God is nearly universal, and given a certain degree of culture is sure to appear. Whence does it originate? Is it the result of reasoning from effect to cause? Consciousness begins when man discovers there are things different from himself. He observes effects, and spontaneously seeks their cause. He learns that he himself has some power over the outward world, that he can change matter into forms to suit him, wood and stone into a house, the barren ground into a fruitful field. His experiments teach him also the limits of his power. There are results he did not produce and cannot. And, as in his experience each change has been caused, he infers that the phenomena about him have an intelligent source. The world, therefore, is the result of Creative Intelligence, and this is the logical inference from his observation and experience. If he were conversant with science, and had opened to him the worlds within worlds that lie between the lowest forms of life and the highest, his reasoning would be undisturbed. He would have to allow, as he had not, for secondary causes, might have to put development and evolution for direct causation, but would come at last to the beginning of life and activity of which his reasoning is the best, if not the only, solution. Beyond doubt one finds God on this logical path. But the genesis of ideas is in so much obscurity one cannot be confident that the conception of God arises in this way. If it does not, then we may suppose it is an intuition. Not that it is an idea actually deposited in man, but that in him is a tendency to believe in God, a germ-cell that on the waking of his faculties through contact with the outward world will develop into the idea of God. If this be so, the earnest |