nmmuiiLmMMmmmammrmmmmrmmmtnmmwmmmmwm nEWBfflgggHg
No. 0.
Faith in God a nkokssity to human hooikty.
403
zlly glklo to thoir resting placo below.
Yet tlicy aro of some use: for
"In niUuro'H lurloitd donuiln
Tlicro nothing lives or (Hcb In vnln."
They luwo not the apporanoo of thoir
more viperous companions, nor have they
taken the same time Tor development.
Therefore they cannot receive those rich
hues which the frost of life gives to their
healthier companions, who have rcauheil
their maturity, growing more beau,
tlful every day, until the time for
their final departure, under autumn's sun.
Yet beautiful is (he change. They aro
not dead but sleeping. Soon they will
return, after various changes to a new
life, presenting this time a more substan
tial though Jess graceful form.
So our thoughts, light, weak ana trcm.
bling bud forth to unfold and strengthen
in the sunlight of approbation. Cooled
uud purified by showers of criticism, they
expand, elevate and strengthen us for a
brief lime, till, displaced by new and ad
vancing ideas, they glide at last into mem
ories store house and furnish food for
thoir successors. H.
FAITH IN GOI) A NECESSITY TO
HUMAN SOCIETY.
We aro happily unprepared to appreci
ate Atheism. It is a region more to bo
dreadi'il than the human imagination,
however distorted, can picture. A few
scenes in history, more horrible than all
others, the recital of which chills the
blood, have shot lighting gleams into the
rayless abyss. The glimpses thus opened
have been all that human nature could
bear.
It is an utter impossibility to drive a
soul into blank Atheism. The attempt
lias been repeatedly made without success.
Men have forced themselves, and per
suaded others down to the brink, but the
stoutest hearts have stopped aghast, and
recoiled with convulsive shudderings
from a plunge into the gloom pierced by
no beam from heaven. Mr. Tyndall is the
last, and perhaps-the most noted instance.
The horriblo enterprises of guilt, and
the shocking disorders of soul which
havo driven men to seek a darkness into
which the cyo of God must not piorco,
furnish hints of what socioty would be, if
faitli in God wero banished from the
world.
Almost invariably men havo sought to
dethrone God, that they might with im
punity proy upon their fellows. With its
godlike powers perverted, human nature
manifests, in the desperate and relentless
vohemenco of its vile and ferocious pas
sions, the same mighty energy that was
designed to impel it upward toward the
perfection of Deity.
The Sodomites sank in viloness until
the thought of God became intolerable,
and was banished; and they soon made
their habitation a plague spot of unnatu
ral lusts so loathsome that the oye of heav
en could no longer endure it, and God
mercifully crushed it deep into the carthi
and the salt sea rushed in and filled it,
hiding the horrible putrescence. Over it,
the Dead Sea hovers to this day, though
four thousand years havo passed since it
covered Sodom and Gomorrah, a mysteri
ous veil of horrors. It is the most deso
late spot of earth; no creature or thing
lives in its waters pregnant and heavy
with bitterness; it remains, and will re.
main till tho world burns, a warning that
society may reach a stage of corruption
which is hopeless, demanding that it be
blotted out.
It was the prevalence of the Atheistic
philosophy of Epicurus, which caused
those scenes of proscription, confiscation,
licentiousness, and bloodshed, amid which
the Roman Republic perished.
The latest exhibition of tho legitimate
and inevitable result of Atheism, when it
becomes paramount in socioty, is the
Roign of Terror. Tho unspeakable hor
rors of the scone in which tho most pol.
ished people in Europe were suddenly
maddened into a hoard of infuriated glad
iators, sodomites, and fiends; transform-