"Surely he never uttered any such extraordinary farrago as you have been putting into his mouth?"
"Not in those words, of course, nor with that collocation of thoughts; but all that I have said you will find either in his Suspense of Faith, or in the volume of sermons published under the title of Re-Statements of Christian Doctrine, (New York, 1860.) I have represented, as fairly as possible, the vagueness of his aspirations and the inconsistency of his principles. It is only clear that he wanted to be a Protestant and a Catholic at the same time. He was shocked at the results of his own centripetalism, and he longed for a visible church, with a tangible creed and a set form of worship; only he wanted to make the church himself; not to be the founder of a new sect—he disclaimed that, and was unwilling even to change the form of service in his own congregation—but to dream about it, to speculate upon what it ought to be, to mould and influence opinion, until, by a seemingly spontaneous movement, the new church should arise from the midst of the people. Poor man! He sees, by this time, that nobody feels the want of this new church, and nobody believes in it; and he hates the true church, partly because it is a continual reproach to him, bringing to mind a duty unfulfilled and a happiness unappreciated, and partly because it continually revives his disappointment."
"I have serious doubts, however, whether Dr. Bellows ever comprehended the beauty of the Catholic religion half so well as many people supposed that he did. Read his books with a little care, and you will see that he never took but the most superficial view of religion: he never got at the core of it. Religion to him—as to how many others!—was a thin philosophy which amused his intellect, a sentimental poetry which tickled his aesthetic instincts; it was not a life. Of that vital Christianity which comprehends the whole relationship between God and man, which is both a creed, a worship, and the very essence of devout life, his heart seems to have been void."
"Yes, he says something almost equivalent to this in his sermon on 'Spiritual Discernment.'[Footnote 178]
[Footnote 178: Re-Statements of Christian Doctrine.]
'All the triumphs of Protestantism,' he declares, 'the universal improvement of private and public morality, of public education, respect for the individual, have grown out of the increasing care to keep the church and the world apart—religion and other interests distinct subjects of thought and attention.' And the word 'world' here he does not use in its bad sense, but merely as synonymous with secular affairs. Again he says, that 'the Catholic Church succeeded wonderfully in blending life and religion together, faith and daily usage, pleasure and worship, philosophy and the Gospel;' and this, he thinks, was its great fault, while the great merit of Protestantism was, that it carefully separated what the church had so carefully melted together. That gives you the real old Puritan idea of piety—a something to be put on at stated times, and then put off again, like the long faces which old-fashioned Protestants pull for Sunday wear; to have no intimate connection with daily life, but to be kept carefully apart, like the best coat which our ancestors used to lay by in lavender leaves, to be worn on days of ceremony. What is the good of a religion which does not blend with work-a-day life? of a faith which is not felt in daily usage? of a worship which must be kept apart from our pleasures, from our business, from any of our honest pursuits? Why, the very beauty of religion is, that it shall be in man's heart at all times and in all places. If it cannot accompany us everywhere, if it can only live in the artificial atmosphere of Sunday meetings, it is not worth having. The danger against which we have most to guard is not, Dr. Bellows thinks, that of forgetting our religion, but that of growing too familiar with it. His God is an awful rather than a loving God, and our sin against him is not that we go so far away from him, but that we bring him so near to us. In effect he tells us to fetch out our piety once a week or so, on stated occasions, but not to let it interfere with our daily walk and conversation, for that would be sacrilege."
"All this shows, as you say, that he has no comprehension as yet of the true nature of religion; and shall I tell you why he is so slow to acquire it? I believe that he is not really in sympathy with Christianity."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh! he is nominally a Christian, of course. He would be horrified if you told him he was not. But he has no sympathy with the religion of Christ. Our Saviour, in his opinion, was only the expounder of a system of ethics, and, to tell the truth, it is not clear to me wherein the Christ of Unitarianism is essentially superior to Socrates or Benjamin Franklin. The worship of our Lord Dr. Bellows emphatically denounces as rank 'idolatry.' We may only reverence him as a creature specially favored by the Almighty, and a teacher to whose word we owe the most profound respect. Take away from your religious system the idea of God in the person of his divine Son perpetually present with the faithful, and helping them to bear the burdens of humanity which he himself has borne, and it is but a cold, cheerless, fallacious belief which is left you. It is no longer religion; it is only a false philosophy. Devotion vanishes; faith, hope, and love are exchanged for a code of rules of behavior; and God withdraws from the world into the impenetrable mystery of the heavens, where the voice of prayer indeed may reach him, but his presence is never felt by man, and his love never fills the heart. He is no longer the dear Lord of the Christian saints, but the Allah of the Moslems."