What is civilization? One lexicographer (Webster,) answers: "the state of being refined in manners from the grossness of savage life, and improved in arts and learning." This state, the ministers say, is the legitimate offspring of the Bible and Christianity. Let us look without prejudice at this popular superstition, and endeavor to ascertain the exact historic facts.

Out of the 1,000,000,000 of earth's population, only about 270,000,000 profess belief in the Bible of the Christians. And the larger portion of this number are Roman or Greek Catholics. Of Protestants to these forms of Catholicity there are only about 70,000,000, and these Protestants are divided and split up into many and various forms of rationalistic reformation; such as Unitarians, Universalists, Quakers, Mormons, Infidels, Come-outers, and Nothingarians, making, on the whole, the most unprecedented and self-destructive conglomeration of religious. opinions and prejudices. Of course Protestants imagine themselves to be the only true Christians. The Bible, under their interpretations and engineering, is the alleged cause of civilization. We deny it in toto, not only of Protestants, but of all religious sects, ancient or modern.

If the Bible is the cause of civilization, how happened it that the first astronomical observations which began to enlarge mind, were made 2,234 years before the birth of Jesus? If it is Christianity that refines us, how was it possible for men to chisel out beautiful pictures and graceful forms 1,900 years before Christ? The first agent of commerce, a ship, arrived at Rhodes, in Greece, from Pagan Egypt, 1,585 years before the existence of the Christian's Bible. And the next agent of intercourse and navigation, i. e., the seaman's compass, was invented in Heathen China 1,120 years before Paul preached to the

Gentiles. And the principle of justice and equity between man and man cropped out in the system of "weights and measures," which was invented and adopted among the Oriental traders 869 years before the birth of Jesus. School-teaching and scientific instructions were introduced by Anaximander 600 years before Paul's conversion to Christianity. 526 years before the angels shouted "Glory to God in the highest" to the Judean Shepherd, a public library of valuable books was established at Athens in civilized Greece.

These arts and this learning, and these civilizing influences and sciences, came without and in advance of Christianity. But since the theology of priests has afflicted men's minds, and since the Heathen here and there have accepted of its peculiar form of civilization, we have the invention of powder, muskets, bayonets, and other instrumentalities of defensive and aggressive war. Also, on the other hand, we have steam-engines, steam-presses, laborsaving machines, and many physical means of earthly progress.

Now, what is the cause of civilization? Answer: The causes and agents of civilization are the same as those influences in Nature by which germs unfold to blooming ultimates. As it is the inevitable decree of God's immutable nature that spring grains should ripen into autumnal harvests, that babies should become full grown men, that thorns should in due time be crowned with the fragrant flower, so is it the irresistible ordination of the same natural God that tribes should form communities, that races should bloom out into nationalities, and that confederated people should unfold all the essential facts and principles of civilization. The Greek, the Roman, the Celtic, the Saxon, the Teutonic, and the yet more recent forms of progressive

power, combine and make improvements, by means both automatic and intentional.

Man is by nature a lover of Science, which means a knowledge of facts and forces; and of Art also, which means the voluntary control of forces. He is such a being, not by virtue of any creed or authority in either politics or religion, but wholly from the fact that man is a spiritual existence, a formation of mental and moral principles, an inheritance from his Eternal Parents..

This duality of man's organization, and these forces and tendencies which are inseparable from his essential nature, taken together, explain the cause of civilization. Society is an expression of man's nature and development; not of man individually, but of man in the aggregate. Hence the present state of American society is a perfect reflection of the interior condition of the mass of the people, but not of the vanguard thousands who yearn day and night for the era of peace and justice. Of existing civilization there are ten good and ten evil concomitants :

These evils will be overcome and abolished just as fast as man's spiritual faculties, including his reasoning endowments, become developed and inherently harmonized. true education, not a creed or a system of opinions, is the

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true remedy. Let your young men grow up in harmony with the laws of their entire nature, and let your young women venerate principles physical and spiritual-overcoming disease with health, deformity with beauty, ignorance with wisdom-let your ministers teach, not preach; tell them to make progress in all directions, not stand still and dogmatize at one point of the infinite radius; love the great Good with all your heart, mind, and strength, which is the best form of universal love-do these things, or at least help get society and government so fixed that you can act out the good which is within, and our present civilization is savagism compared with that which would then exist.

The Inherent Necessity of War.

CLXXXVIII. QUESTION: "Is war a necessity under any circumstances? It would seem that war is a natural process, because, by means of war, the world has made civil and religious progress. Is not this true, or am I mistaken? Does Nature teach that death is necessary to life?"

ANSWER: Nature's heart is filled with forces and principles of perfection, and nothing can resist their ultimate manifestation. A strongly constituted man, for example, will recover from sickness in spite of blue pills and the lancet. So the whole body of mankind, being filled with every adequate energy, and with conquering principles, will make progress in spite of earthquakes, epidemics, bad religions, oppressive governments, and destructive wars.

It is true, however, that sections of Nature (below the spiritual Man) constitute a kind of War Department—a West Point Academy-where the quadruped brain (which yet remains in some men) acquires the art of living by means of violence and bloodshed. Life feasts upon Death. Construction employs Major-General Destruction to super

intend the progressive advancement of organic existence. That which lives in the world depends upon that which dies in the world. Destruction spreads the table for the support of Construction. All departments of Nature, therefore, are regulated by the mutually operative wings of Progress, viz: Destruction and Construction, or Death and Life, or War and Peace. The bird eats the fly, the owl eats the bird, the hawk eats the owl, man kills the hawk, and so on all the way up the steps of organic growth; and yet we hold that Human Beings are not designed to be influenced and educated by their inferiors-by the fish, and birds, and animals, that live and breathe at the foot of the throne on which mankind sits-"a little lower than the angels."

Minerals, vegetables, and animals climb up to the production and position of Mankind by means of force-won possessions. Beasts have war establishments in their brain, and teeth, and claws. Race eats race, as streams run into streams, to make the ultimate. Force and violence are natural, until the spiritual is reached; then the spiritual is the natural, and force and war are monstrous and unnecessary. Let each reader ask himself the question: “Is war congenial to my reason and affections?" If the spirit within shall whisper "yes," then blushingly and sadly we write the verdict-your development is not spiritual.

Spirit of American Loyalty.

CLXXXIX.-QUESTION: "What was the spirit of the people of the Free States when the Southern States rebelled?"

ANSWER: The American Government, with its imperfections, is the best on earth. It is founded on the most perfect "preamble" of eternal principles, and its constitutional laws, thence derived, are the most beneficent of any