The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

418 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON THE INDIVIDUAL MAN.upon the entire of man's destiny. In the third place, itputs in motion the faculties of man in their natural order.As a moral being, man's moral sense is the moving facultywithin him, and the intellectual powers are but its ministersand helps. Now, religion acts on the conscience, and theconscience calls into play the understanding, the affections,and the memory.In this way the mental powers act withthe most ease and vigour, because this is their natural andhealthful action. It is the action of life, not the action ofspasmodic or galvanic effort. In the fourth place, religionacts soonest upon the mind. A child can feel its relations toGod, and have its judgment and memory exercised aboutthese relations, long before it is capable of a mental act in anyother department of human knowledge.But for its religiousexercises, which are always the earliest mental efforts of thechild, years of intellectual dormancy would pass away, andwhen they came to an end, the child would bring to othersubjects untrained and comparatively feeble powers. Besides,whatever makes the first, cwteris paribus, makes alsothe deepest impression upon the mind. In the fifth place,religion acts most frequently/ upon the mind. In early lifeespecially, questions of duty must be of hourly occurrence.The decision of these questions involves the exercise of thereasoning powers. This is favourable to mental activity,and mental activity begets mental vigour. In the lastplace, religion acts upon the greatest mmiber.Science, politics,and other subjects, have each their chosen disciples,but religion embraces all ; for where is the rational beingwho cannot feel the force of its motives, and the extent towhich his highest interests are involved in it I On all thesegrounds, we do not hesitate to affirm that religion, both asa motive power and as a moulding agent, wieldsover man,whether viewed individually or socially, an influence of suchuniversal and resistless energy, that, compared with it, allother agencies are insignificant and powerless. Emphaticallyit is religion,—keeping out of view at present the unequaladvantages of birth and of mental endowment,—itis