RELIGIOUS DIABOLISM.

Le Comte de Ségur observes, “Si Dieu a fait l’homme à son image, l’homme le lui a bien rendu.” Reason leads to the discovery of the divine attributes as pure abstractions; but as no man can rise to the conception of higher principles of action, than those of which he is himself conscious, when fools or impostors throw the divinity into action, they necessarily impart to their idea something of their own weakness and infirmities. Let the creed of any sect be as pure and as elevated as it may, the mass of bigots, hypocrites, and mal-organized beings among its professors, inevitably end in worshipping a demon. They may continue to call the idol of this fabrication, the reflection of their own vices and follies, “most wise, or most merciful,” &c., &c. but they attribute to their fearful phantom, their own hateful passions and narrow views: and the result is a being, just so much worse than themselves, as he is more powerful and more uncontrolled. Such is the origin of religious diabolism—for an illustration of which see the self-tormenting sects of India, who preach a doctrine of perpetual suffering and bodily anguish, as being most pleasing to the God of all good. See, too, the gloomy Calvinists, and long-faced sectarians, and the dark preachers of sacrifice all over the world. Between the religion of love and fear, what a difference! It is that beautiful traditional picture of the human divinity, the Ecce Homo of Carlo Dolce, opposed to the grim and gaunt idol of the pagodas of the unhappy Hindoos.