such a doctrine will sanctify any sort of worship, and any sort of
deity, provided men be sincere; are you prepared to contend for much?"

Mr. Fellowes put an adroit objection here. "Why," said he, "you will
not deny, surely, that even Scripture often commends, as good, a faith
which is founded on a very imperfect conception of the spiritual
realities to which it is directed?"

"It is ingeniously put, I admit. I grant that there are here, as in
so many other cases, limits which, though it may not be very easy
to assign them, as plainly exist. But that does not answer my
question. I want to know whether the principle is to be applied
without limits at all, as your speculative theory demands? In other
words, will it or not sanctify acts of the most degrading and
pernicious idolatry, of the most debasing superstition, because
allied to that state of the affections in which you make the essence
of faith consist? If it will not, then your objection to me is
nothing; it merely asks me to assign limits within which the exercise
of the affection in question may be acceptable, or almost equally
acceptable, in cases of a partially enlightened understanding. If it
will, then it leaves you open, as I conceive, and fairly open, to all
the objections which have been so brusquely urged against you by your
friend, in whose indignant protest against the detestable apologies for
the lowest forms of religious degradation, in which so many 'spiritual'
writers indulge, I for one heartily sympathize."

I ventured to add, that the account of "faith" as a state of the
emotions exclusively, given by some of his favorite writers, is
perfectly arbitrary. "Belief," say they, "is wholly intellectual: faith
is wholly moral." Now it would be of very little consequence, if the