Between many of our modern “spiritualists” and Romanists there is a parallelism of movement absolutely ludicrous.  You may chance to hear both claiming, with equal fervor, against “intellect” and “logic” as totally incompetent to decide on “religion” or “spiritual” truth, and in favor of a “faith” which disclaims all alliance with them.  You may chance hear them both insisting on an absolute submission to an “infallible authority” other than the Bible; the one external,—­that is, the Pope; the other internal,—­that is, “Spiritual Insight”; both exacting absolute submission, the one to the outward oracle, the Church, the other to the inward oracle, himself; both insisting that the Bible is but the first imperfect product of genuine Christianity, which is perfected by a “development,” though as to the direction of that development they certainly do not agree.  Both, if I may judge by some recent speculations, recoil from the Bible even more than they do from one another; and both would get rid of it,—­one by locking it up, and the other tearing it to tatters.  Thus receding in opposite directions round the circle, they are found placed side by side at the same extremity of a diameter, at the other extremity of which is the—­Bible.  The resemblances, in some instances, are so striking, that one is reminded of that little animal, the fresh-water polype, whose external structure is so absolutely a mere prolongation of the internal, that you may turn him inside out, and all the functions of life go on just as well as before.

It is impossible to convey to you an adequate idea of the bouleversement which has taken place in our religious relations, —­even in each man’s little sphere.  It is as if the religious world were a masquerade, where you cease to feel surprise at finding some familiar acquaintance disguised in the most fantastical costume.  There is our old friend W——­, rigorously, as you know, educated in his old father’s Evangelical notions, ready to be a confessor for the two wax candies, even though unlighted, and to be a martyr for them if but lighted.  His cousin in the opposite direction has found even the most meagre naturalism too much for him, and avows himself a Pantheist.  L——­, the son, you remember, of an independent minister, is ready to go nobly to death in defence of the prerogatives of his “apostolic succession”; and has not the slightest doubts that he can make out his spiritual genealogy, without a broken link, from the first Bishop of Rome, downwards!—­though, poor fellow, it would puzzle him to say who was his great-grandfather.  E——­, you are aware, has long since joined the Church of Rome, and has disclosed such a bottomless abyss of “faith,” that whole cart-loads of mediaeval fables, abandoned even by Romanists (who, by the way, stand fairly aghast at his insatiable appetite), have not been able to fill it.  All the saints in the Roman Hagiography cannot work miracles as fast as he can credit them.  On the other hand, his brother has signalized himself