Welsh Journals

THE WELSH OALVINISTIC METHODIST RECORD. OCTOBER, 1852. THE EELIGION OF THE AGE. The age boasts of its religion as part of its progress. "With many, religion is mere philosophic speculation upon truth connected with man's soul. With others, it is the seemly discharge of all relative duties. With others, it consists in admiration for the Bible, as a book of literary excellence. With others, it is the adoption of a creed, or connexion with a church. With others, it consists in bustle and outward zeal. In all, it lacks life, that deep, intense, glowing life, which so marked it in earlier times. Its root is not in the conscience, but in some outer region of the soul, which does not bring us into close and living contact with Jehovah himself. It is a thing of the imagination, or of the intellect, or even of the affections, but not of the conscience. There can be no religion which has not its seat there. The hindrance to living religion is the want of a " purged con¬ science ;" and till the conscience has been purged from dead works, there can be no real religion, no true service of God. How little is there of conscience in the religion of the day! Hence, that lack of simplicity, of freshness, of serenity, which we should expect. Hence, its hollowness and noisy shallowness. The religion of the day is (as we have seen) an easy-minded religion, without conflict and wrestling, without self-denial and sacrifice; a religion which knows nothing of the pangs of the new birth at its commencement, and nothing of the despera* straggle with the flesh and with the Devil, day by* day, making us long for spiritual deliverance, for the binding of the adversary, and for the Lord's arrival. It is a second-rate religion; a religion in which there is no largeness, no grandeur, no potency, no noble-mindedness, no elevation, no self-devotedness, no all-constraining love. It is a hollow religion, with a fair exterior, but an aching heart, a heart un¬ satisfied, a soul not at rest, a conscience not at peace with God; a religion, 2d