RECON PHICAQO, iLUNOlS. T 13: E Reaction from Agnostic Science BY REV. W. J. MADDEN, AUTHOR OF "DISUNION AND REUNION/' Second Revised Edition. St. Louis, Mo., 1899. Published by B. HERDER, J 7 South Bkoadwat. ^^d or foul — when it can be safely done. Suspect him ' of being hard-hearted, selfish and unfeeling. Why should he not be, if it suits himV He knows no authority over 96 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. his personal feelings. Suspect him of being vindictive and revengeful. He v^ill pursue relentlessly whoever crosses or in- jures him. To gain his revenge he will not stick at secret murder. Why should he? If he can be safe from men, there is nobody else to fear. Suspect his chastity. There are very few, if any at all, who are not intermit- tently solicited by lustful fancies. Will this agnostic, who spurns accountability and writes down divine commands as super- stitious lies, hesitate at indulgence wher- ever and however he can, when so inclined? His logic would call him a fool if he did. Thus the free- thinking disciple of the "scientific method," unconsciously pro- claims himself an object of distrust to his fellow-man in every dealing and social relation of life, and they in turn would be very foolish not to distrust hira. Mutual trust and confidence are absolutely necessary for decent and tolerable society. The agnostic principle, if rigidly followed, ut- terly destroys those pleasant bonds, and society ceases to be either tolerable or decent. Moreover, the basis of justice, on which human laws rest, is undermined by the scientific method in its account of human existence. Why should a judge impose a OTHER QUESTIONS NOT ANSWERED BY SCIENCE. 97 penal sentence on one who quotes the agnostic evolutionist (whom a great part of the world delights to honor) for his asser- tion, that he is under the spell of a natural law impelling him to struggle for existence, and that there is no being known to nature who has given prohibitory commands, or who will bring him to account? He can plead from their text, that his impulses are nature's work, not his. Why punish him for them? It is unjust. He is but an irre- sponsible factor in the great evolutionary process. When he cheated and stole, and revenged and murdered, in the whole story of human life as told him by the evolutionists, there is not a shred of evidence to show him guilty of moral wrong or wickedness. There have been, and are in our days ag- nostic judges, Bramwells and Stephens, on whom the accused could turn, and declare from their own beliefs, or want of them, that their laws have no foundation, and their courts, frauds on poor evoluted hu- manity. The same would apply to domestic rule and parental authority. The children could turn on agnostic parents and demand by what right they corrected or punished them, for the peccadillos and unruliness to which all children are prone, but which make fam- ily life impossible it* unrestrained. The 98 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. children can appeal to nature and impulse, sacred in the eyes of agnostic parents, and deny that they are in fault, and no fault, therefore no correction — why punish a poor evoluted mud-fish? how expect moral rectitude in a lepidosiren or conscience in protoplasm? The "scientific method" cries out against such things. Thus carried to its logical conclusions in practical life, agnostic science would up- turn human society from its very founda- tion, and convert this earth into a pande- monium. The clear perception of this has shaken the confidence of many minds in this much- praised "method "of dispensing with all information from the supernatural, and they are turning back again to the old ground for a more rational account of themselves, their lives and their destiny. Chapter YII. The Alternative of Science. In contrast to the unaided and self-reliant "scientific method," let us recall what the old story, believed for so long a time, and by so many, to be revealed, tells us about ourselves. THE3 ALTERNATIVE OF SCIENCE. 99 It certainly has the merit of presenting a picture of our origin, which does not repel or put us to shame. Of recent years that picture has been kept a good deal out of the^common view, " skyed " by the men of science. It has moreover been smeared over by much protoplastic mud, so that like a palimpsest manuscript, we must do some scraping to get at the original etch- ing — which means that it is not easy to induce people, nowadays, to go over again carefully, so familiar a lesson as the Scrip- ture story of the creation. But compared to the dismal tale of the scientists ori the same subject, it is absolutely pleasant and most flattering to us. In place of mud swamps where " lepidosirens " swim and slumber, it introduces us to a fair garden where golden fruit is on the trees. Cool, clear streams are flowing on the carpet of green, through the glades, a wondrous variety of animals, tame and gentle, peace- fully browse, and birds of every hue float and sing in the blue above. There is one form just moulded and still lying upon the earth, but far finer and more perfect in line than any animal. "And over that still inanimate form, the Great Maker, Grod, it is said — and said, remark, without any explanation or apology of wearying demonstration, just as a matter of course, 100 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. taken for granted as the great first logical necessity that all right reason demands and postulates — God breathes ! That creative and mysterious secret — the spiraculum vitae — life from the Divine breathing, courses at once through the finely mod- eled members of that prostrate form — t glovrs and moves, the eyes open and light up the features v^ith intelligence, and then this last and greatest of the Crea- tor's works rises and stands erect — the first living man. That is what we infer from the plain reading of Genesis, and what men for ages have been satisfied with, and proud to believe. But in these later times it seems that this will not do at all. It is too simple, too plain, too nursery-story-like for the trained and powerful modern in- tellect. Facts, it is alleged, have been brought to light by intelligent research which prove that this was not — could not be — the way in which we were made. The human mind is surely very perverse in this, as in other well-known things. You would suppose, that a handsomely set-up being like man, should be very glad just to find himself so, without inquiring too minutely how he came to be so gifted a being — the first, the superior among all the visible living things on this earth. JBut no, that position does not suit our moderns. THE ALTERNATIVE OF SCIENCE. 101 They want to sweep away that privileged pre-eminence as a childish fable, notwith- standing the visible evidence all around us, and reduce man to the same common level of origin with the animals, no greater specifically, no better essentially. "Grant," says Mr. Darwin, " a simple archetypal creature like a mud-fish with five senses, and some vestige of a mind, and I believe natural selection will account for the pro- duction of every vertebrate animal." Well, well, I much prefer the other story. And that story, so long held by so many of our race as a sacred tradition, continues with a still more interesting simplicity. Adam, our prototype and first father being thus fashioned, the Great Creator makes over to him and his, with a generous bounty that men forget, as a gift forever, all the other wondrous works of his creation. He made him lord of creation, with dominion over every living thing. In trial of his ownership, Adam summons all living things to his presence, and lo, they obey his call ! Submissively they defile before him, and as they pass, he names them ac- cording to their kind. But, as yet, there is a certain loneliness in his state. These animals are fair to see in the grace and freshness of their primal type, but from not one of them all comes back, 102 THE REACTION THOM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. to their new master, an answering voice of intelligence — no communion on equal terms of soul and mind» The Great Maker, however, does not leave him in that loneliness. He prepares a de- lightful surprise for him. He throws him into a deep sleep, and as he slept, by some mysterious ^process of creation, not at all necessary for us to know, and which with our present limited intelligence, it is impossible for us to understand, he took from Adam's substance, material out of which he builds up another form like to his own, and sets it over against him to look on when awak- ened. With what delight and wonder, must he not have gazed on this new thing of exquisite beauty. He had seen the ani- mals, and doubtless admired their wonder- ful formation, but what animal of them all showed anything like to that in shapeliness of form and comely grace? Its shape is like his shape, but, oh, more finely, more del- icately, more exquisitely moulded ! It moves and speaks, it comes toward him. Adam peers into those eyes on a level with his own, with joy he beholds a responsible intelligence in their light, and in raj)ture exclaims, " Now truly is this the flesh of my flesh and the bone of my bone," and he hails the first woman as " Eva — the moth- er of the living." This is how it reads in THE ALTERNATIVE OF SCIENCE. 103 the old, old story. No mention being made of an " archetypal creatnre like a mud -fish with five senses and a vestige of a mind," the scientists laugh it to scorn. "I would give absolutely nothing," says Mr. Dar- win, " for natural selection, if it requires miraculous addition at any one stage of descent." "I hope," said Mr. Tyndall in his Belfast address, " to find in matter the origin of all terrestrial things." To talk of the miraculous at the begin- ning of things, where all is miracle to us, seems shallow, if not impertinent. It is irritating to think that puny men, who pass away after a brief life, fancy themselves competent from a mere examination of fos- sil animal formations, to enter the domain of the Creator, and infallibly insist that the great mystery of life began in the way they think they have discovered, and in no other. In view of the fact that the scientists in many countries, nowadays, regard the theory of evolution as a scientific truth, some of our writers, it is true, maintain that evolution is perfectly compatible with the story of Gen- esis, as far as the corporal formation of the race is concerned. Very well. If they wish to enter upon that experimental inter- pretation of the sacred Scriptures they are free to do so. The Church does not forbid it, provided they hold by the dogma that 104 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. God, as Creator, is back of it all. But let them not forget, in their enthusiasm for scientific research and their complacent ac- ceptance, as scientific truths of the general- izations from biological and geological facts, that it is precisely that dogma which their agnostic friends want to have ignored. From their own avowal it is perfectly well known that their object is to dispense with the necessity or even the supposition of a Divine Creator. To our orthodox enthu- siasts for evolution this should be a note of warning, not to allow themselves to be led too far afield. I know they say there is no danger ; we can admit all the postulates of evolution and still assert that they are but the Creator's modus operandi. That they can do this is not at all so clear. If you admit a common protoplastic origin for all living things, and a subsequent transitional change from species to species, how differ- entiate between rational and non-rational creatures? how explain responsibility and non-responsibility, accountability and non- accountability? Where does the rational basis of man^s nature come in? At what stage of his evolution was it added on? Was it as he was passing from the mud-fish into the reptile, or from the reptile to the bird, or from the bird to the quadruped, or from the four-footed to the four-handed THE ALTERNATIVE OF SCIENCE. 105 animal, or finally from the erect quadra- manous, "furnished with a tail," into the man? Where, and when, and how, did our rational nature accrue to us? Whence the soul, with its moral sense and aspiration for immortality? Evolution has not only no word to tell us about that, but it is impos- sible to see how it can come into the theory at all. The truth is, biologists and geolo- gists can legitimately argue on the subject of creation only a posteriori^ that is from the few facts they have been able to marshal from the skeletons of animal life, the process of generation, and the surface of the earth. This, we all know, to be an imperfect and fallible method of deducing universal conclusions or establishing general rules. When scientists pass to a priori statements, that is, lay down how the creation must have taken place, they are guilty of the fallacy known to logicians as the tr an situs a genere ad genus — a fraud- ulent skip from one position to another position altogether different, and then pro- claimingfromthe second whatthey purported to have found in the first. To make a "priori infallible statements as to the manner of creation (which they do with seemingly great security), they must either be more than men and share the creative faculty themselves, or have stood on the level of 106 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. the Creator's platform while He was work- ing, which is of course absurd. No mat- ter what may be its merits as a theory, evolution proves far too little for us as rational, responsible and accountable men, and so will never satisfy us. It has no practical value for us as a light upon the meaning of our origin or ourselves, and may just as well be relegated to the glass cases of museums as a curiosity or conundrum of scientific speculation. The other story is more comprehensive and satisfying — it is certainly more agreeable, and it is as elevating as it is encouraging. It gives us an exalted idea of ourselves, to know that we are descended from a first pair, a man and woman fashioned by an Almighty Creator, and endowed with an intelligence far above the rest of His works. Secure in that- thought, we are safe from the despair which must beset those, who believe that they have been cast out, un- acknowledged and disowned, by some un- known and brute cause, into the whirling mass of the evolutionary struggle. We feel that there is an intelligent ownership back of us, and a Fatherhood above us, which will not permit the existence we have received, to be merely a torture and a mockery nor the aspirations implanted in our breasts — dreams of Tantalus. **• Why is it not granted then? Because there is another large class, who want to fling over all religion, and who know that the present system admirably helps their desires. This is a proof of the danger to all belief, which results from these schools. And (2) there is another equally large class whom, unhappily, sectarian jealousy, and long- cherished animosity to another section of their fellow-citizens, place in opposition to everything desired by them — " We will not listen to any demand you make or any plea you^nt forth," they say ; " we suspect and distrust you." Shame I And this is a country which boasts of per- fect freedom and toleration ! In face of such opposition, it can only be hoped, that time will bring a more enlightened and kinder feeling. Meanwhile it rests upon those, who care for the preservation of religious faith, to do their part as citizens PRESENT DAY DANGERS TO BELIEVERS. 163 to remove prejudice. This prejudice rests on the hollo west of cries, yet one that always gains the people's ear and excites their, alarm. "Whenever the demand is heard for sanction and aid to schools with religious training in their programme, the cry is raised, " Our great national school system is in danger ! " It rings through the land and at once rallies multitudes of people in opposition, who never thought about the question, who do not even under- stand what the danger may be, or how, or whence it is to come. It will be a duty to say, and to show, to such people that the national school system is not in danger, that this cry is as false as it is captious, that the real danger is loss of a people's religious faith, and the forfeit to the nation's detriment, of the greatest moral force for order and right conduct in this world. " The home and the church," it is said again, " are the places for religious training, they are sufficient to avert this danger." 'No doubt the home and the church bear their share of good influence upon the child, but experience shows that this in- fluence does not reach far enough, and as often as not is more than outweighed by the loose example which the child witnesses in the religionless school. The child ought 164 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. to be habituated to a reverence for re- ligion, and impressed with its great impor- tance in this life and for the next. But how expect the child to deem that important, about which he never hears his teachers say one word on any of the six days of his weekly school-life? And if anything is ever said about it, it is, more often than not, a sneer from an agnostic teacher, or a mockery of it in the mouths of his com- panions. No, it must be taken as generally true, that unless religious ideas are inter- woven with the chief occupation of the child's daily hfe, he will value them very little in his riper years. If religion is true, it is a crime, to contribute to such a result. It is not, then, unfair to assert, that one of the greatest dangers to religious belief in our times is the system of purely worldly education, imposed on so many countries to-day, in spite of the unceasing protest of the oldest church in the world and the two hundred and fifty millions of its members. 4. Another, and no slight danger, is the extreme worldliness and luxurious living of the rich. Think of the vast sums expended on their purely selfish tastes and pursuits. Take a peep into those splendid and costly club-houses — the 30ft lounge of the Syba- rite and Epicurean. Think of the floating- palace pleasure yachts, the gorgeous villas PRESENT DAY DANGERS TO BELIEVERS. 165 at the summer resorts, the brilliant equip- ages and the dazzling toilettes, male and female. We shudder at the polygamous Turk, and the unbridled animalism of the Oriental, but who keeps up those hundreds of costly and nameless establishments of licentiousness in every Christian city? Place side by side in your thoughts, what you have learned of Christianity and its counsels, and say what could possibly be in common between the one picture and the other? The luxury-loving rich are of the " eat, drink, to-morrow we die " class, and their example, like a contagion, spreads down through the ranks of the less favored of fortune in a reduced degree. Until these people wake up to the dread reality, that here is not the place of final satisfaction and final reward, that it is a species of most reckless gambling to stake all on their few years of present life, faith can find no place among them or give anything to hope for. 5. Fiction, which is turned out by the ton to amuse the leisure hour, is another danger. What does the best of it parade across its stage as representative of human society? Why, a thronging crowd of unadulterated heathens. Even in the exquisitely refined and delicate stories of Miss Jane Austen, whom Lord Macaulay so highly praised, and in the admittedly clean novels of such masters 166 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. as Thackeray and Dickens,* you would never for a moment be reminded, that you were reading about the mhabitants of a world, once visited by a Divine Teacher, and a Divine Redeemer. Say what people may, all this cannot help having the effect of slowly lulling the constant reader into an unholy and unsafe forgetfulness, and form- ing the fascinated reader into the mould and stamp of his favorite hero and hero- ine — ' ' These people seem to have got on famously without much ado about religion, why not I? " — he is apt to say. The returning agnostic must not fail to take account of these five dangers, and healthily exercise his faith in not only avoid- ing, but doing battle against their deadly tendencies. In the following brief chapter, I offer a few hints to smooth the way for some minds, whom the many mysteries of faith hinder and perplex — without reason as will be seen. * Just "to save his face," as the Chinese say, Dickens has a few, very few, allusions to *' The Master who was gentle and forgiving," etc. MYSTERIES. 167 Chapter XII. Mysteries. We have to swallow a lot of " camels ' ' in this world around us, why hesitate about a few moreV From where I am now sitting I can see, in a bee line, the great Lick observatory — sixteen atmospheric miles away ; it is thirty- two by the road. It looks just like a coach and six on the summit of the range. Yet I know that under that little white dome, there is the largest telescope yet mounted in the world ; and there are sidereal teles- copes, elaborate photographic instruments, quadrants, sextants, true meridians — what not? There is a trained staff of observers and distinguished mathematicians, who live up there in six months of cloud and snow, five thousand feet above the heads, and away from the converse of their fellows, to discover for us the secrets of the stars. It cost nearly a million dollars to install that small establishment. And how little, how very little, they have been able to tell us; and without at all depreciating their great devotedness and industry — how use- less in the practical affairs of men has even that little proved to be ! They have given 168 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. US a few pictures. »But as well photograph a '^ Fruit-vale" orange or a squash-melon, for all those pictures tell, in reality, of Mars or the moon. It was up there they discovered the fifth moon of Jupiter, a fact which Professor Ball informed his readers, in the London JSlews, was of ''vast im- portance." In the hard realities of life and its personal concerns, what is it to me whether Jupiter has five moons or fifty? They make stupendous calculations about the distances, the gravity and motions of planets, stars, double stars, comets and nebulae. Curious no doubt, but they are still gazing into mystery, and are as far from solving the familiar riddles close around them as ever. They have made great advances in knowledge of the sun. But who will tell us what heat really is, and why it acts so peculiarly? That sun is one million times the bulk of our earth ; it is ninety-three millions of miles distant — very well. The flood of heat, cast out by a bulk like that, ought to entirely envelope and keep in equal warmth all parts of a small globe like the earth. So one would fancy. But ask Dr. Nansen to tell you what he saw and felt last year at the North Pole. 'No obliquity of the earth's axis can en- tirely satisfy one, as an explanation of that. But here is the real mystery of heat. It MYSTERIES. 169 travels all the ninety-three millions of miles to come to us — and for all that distance up to within a few feet it is cold, icy cold — proof ; rise up straight into that sunshine in a balloon ; in an hour or two you will be a frost-bitten corpse, the same sun still shining on you ! Yet, what enormous initial heat must have been projected to warm that little bed out therein the garden, and make those spring flowers look so gay this morning ! Last week Professor Holden and his friends up at the '' Lick" had sev- eral feet of snow all round them, while we were sitting in shirt sleeves and wearing sunhats from the heat down here ! The illustration of the glass of a hot-house usually offered in explanation of this, solves not, for me, the mystery why a thing that was icy cold becomes blazing hot by mere contact with the atmosphere, or by coming under it, so to speak. Yet you be- lieve in heat. It is a thing that will blister you, if you do not believe in it. You, at the same time, really know nothing at all about the thing itself. Up at that "Lick," they will tell you the weight of this great earth — enor- mous — the figures in pounds would reach from here to there. Yet this tremendous bulk is floating about in, apparently, nothing! When we lie down upon it at 170 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. night, or step abroad upon it in the day, how do we know it will not give way under us and leave us there? We do not know at all, because everybody will tell you, if they are straight and honest, that au fond it is a mystery to us, yet you helieve it will not give way, you never heard of such a thing. Centripetal and centrifugal forces — attraction and gravitation — keep it up. Yes, of course, but what really is the thing ^ the res of that force, no one ever has told, or ever will be able to tell us. Again, this earth is round. Some be- lated people will say it is not, but I know it is, because some years ago I left the shore of that neighboring bay of San Fran- cisco on the train, traveling eastward, and without ever turning back, I sailed in again through its Golden Gate, at an exactly op- posite point of the compass I Well, two- thirds of its vast, round surface is water ; why doesn't it spill? In the twenty-four days' stretch across the great Pacific, we all believed it would not spill, but why^ not a soul of us knew. Of course, most of us did know about "diurnal motion," and ''pressure of atmosphere," and such other school-boy explanation, but the whole vast phenomenon, its currents and the nicety of its tidal arrangements, who can ever com- prehend? MYSTERIES. 171 While I write, too, there is a beautiful lit- tle creeper called the " B rid al- veil " silently throwing its small, tender tentacles around that porch there, climbing* the training laths as skillfully as a sailor-boy shins a halyard. What is it makes it do that? What is the force within it which pushes and guides? We all helieved it would surely do that, as soon as this spring-time was old enough, and the birds were singing again — but Jiow^ the wisest of us do not Tcnow. These and a score of other things " as familiar as household words" mystify us, yet we delight to believe in them, all be- cause they give us delight. And yet we grumble, and question, and doubt, and say we can not possibly believe a few other mysterious or miraculous things, because we cannot see through them at once. How absurd of us! And they come to us, too, on a word we ought to respect — at least that millions, as good as we, did respect and believe. It is backed, moreover, by a promise that if we but be humbly patient enough, this film-covered glass, through which the light comes only very "darkly," will some day be shattered, and the whole infinite range of knowledge and its unraveled secrets will be in full view, with a whole eternity to revel in — satiating this craving of ours to know. It is worth 172 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. waiting" for, ever so patiently — ever so humbly, is it not? and vastly better, you will agree, than the "exterior darkness" where the other people are to be forever, who are both impatient and proud. The men of science object, that in mat- ters of faith or belief, we surrender our reason. There is a fallacy, and not an hon- est one, in that assertion. It is not our reason we surrender. It is our understand- ing. Our reason suppHes us with valid and sufficient motives for believing what we cannot understand even in the common things of life. Our reason we are never forbidden to use, but many objects are withdrawn from our understanding, and though it cannot always serve us, it is no hindrance to our belief. Chapter XIII. Further Difficulties and Their Answers. There are particular points of doctrine which some allege to be a block in the way of their unbelieving, or at least a cause of their doubting and their unrest of mind. DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 173 With such persons I have had no small experience. I have met them on the high- ways of the world — on the decks of ocean steamers, in railways and stage-coaches, in out-of-the-way towns of the New World, on lonely sheep-farms, in hotels and in pri- vate homes. It may be useful to relate this experi- ence, and it may prove helpful to others like them, to subjoin the answers to their difficulties. I remember a young person on board the S. S. Bliotomahana coasting around New Zealand, saying so earnestly : '' If I could only know for certain what God wants me to do, there is nothing, it seems to me, that I would not do for Him. * * * No, no, not what is in books or what men say — I want Him to tell me Himself." Beply, — You want what nobody else in the world is privileged to have — private rev- elation, is that reasonable? He certain- ly gave instructions, fully enough, what each one is to do — they have been handed down by tradition accurately enough. True, men have confused some parts of them — but still on proper in- quiry they are determinable and millions agree about them — unreasonable expec- tation is foolish and futile. I remember the wealthy young squatter ^ 174 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. as the Arumac drew out from wharf to re- sume her Australian coasting trip, looking wearily over the busy scene and saying, ''What is the meaning of it all ? " — that is, the life of men — the world we had been discussing. Meply. — Unaided by information from the Author of it we never can know. Hence the need of revelation, and our duty to consult it and submit to what it tells us. Guesses from the data around us will never answer your question. I remember the celebrated meteorologist laying down for a smoking-room audience — a sympathetic one — in mid-ocean, that the only comfortable way to live was just to follow all the instincts of nature when it can be conveniently done, they must be right, else we should not have them. Mejply, — It is honorable to be a naturalist in botany and the laws of storms as you are — but dishonor and shame and re- morse are sure to follow the naturalism you advocate outside your profession — there is nothing more certain than that, as abundant experience around us in the world shows, law courts and jails are the sad necessities imposed by the " instincts of nature" that you would have men follow when it pleased them — therefore there is something wrong with nature — DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 175 human nature — in many respects, since it leads to such disaster. It needs re- straint and discipline, and only when corrected by a higher teaching, it can be trusted at all. I remember the young American sugar- planter, exiled in the tropics, guessing that whoever put him in this world would " look after him all right," and if he were to go on existing forever, the same disposer of him would no doubt continue to do so, he " guessed he'd leave it just like that." Beply. — If He put you here just like a piece of furniture — a table or a rocking- chair, no doubt he would ; but if he put you here, and gave you the means ex- pressly designed for looking after your- self, do not be too sure that He will not hold you responsible for not making use of them. And that you could not possi- bly make a mistake about it. He told you that way he wanted you and expected you to use them, in looking after your- self — at least thousands of your fellow- beings — intelligent fellow-beings — quite as intelligent as you, perhaps much more so, think He has. An English writer of repute declared, that he " would rather be an atheist and believe there was no God, than believe there was a God who having created rational beings, gave 176 THE KEACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. them no intimation of His will, nor made any communication to them whatever — the former is a daring creed, but the other is a foolish one." I remember the famous humorist — serious for the moment, while we plowed the Atlantic, wanting to know how the God, represented to us by the preachers, could be a possibihty in view of such a world as this is : and the English mechanic-engineer saying with an air of relief, but as if the relief were not quite comfortable, "Yes, a good many people now say there is no such being at all." Reply, — The humorist in question is a well-known persijieur of religion — per- haps since Voltaire's time no other au- thor — certainly none in the English tongue, has done so much harm to re- ligious belief, by sneers veneered with wit, than he. He acknowledged on that very afternoon that he had passed a most irreligious youth — got no instruction and knew nothing of religion, but what he afterwards picked up himself. Be- sides, on his own admission, and to judge from a few choice personal anecdotes, that portion of his existence had been none of the cleanest. However, I told him he was going against the universal sense of mankind in every time and place, DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 177 which is not a safe thing to do, and that the reason this world, as it is, did not better reflect the Supreme Being in all His goodness, was owing to the gift of free will to men, and the exceedingly bad use that was made of it — " bringing death into the world and all our woe — " and the bad use that many still continue to make of it. For our friend the engine- maker, I might have quoted the opening of a certain Psalm — " The fool says in his heart there is no God." But if any good is to be done to such people you must never be offensive to them. Prove to them there is a God by the very necessity of the case — no other way of accounting for our world and its teeming life. I remember the exceedingly agreeable and perfectly gentlemanly young " station owner," fond of reading in the lonely evenings to the sound of the Pacific surf ; very advanced in his opinions about " pre- historic man " and the myths of revelation. Though reared in the Church of England and married to a convent-educated and Catholic wife, he declared his utter inability to beheve what his Christian neighbors seemed to do so easily. Beply. — See the danger of reading books by subtle and accomplished speculators 12 178 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. without any previous training for argu- ment, and never having heard the proper explanations of the leading facts of rev- elation. Pre-historic man solves no mystery of the creation — it pushes it back a step, that's all. But pre-historic man has by no means been certainly discovered. He has turned out to be a mistake of the geolo- gists, or at least many skilled in that experimental investigation — geology — it can hardly be called a science,' cer- tainly not an exact one — admit, that the evidence for him is only slenderly par- tial — therefore entirely inconclusive. Thirdly, what does it matter to us, as a practical question, how old our race is ; the individual responsibility for individ- ual conduct remains for each one of us, and that is what should chiefly occupy our attention. Again, we should be chary of talking of myths, where so much that is mysterious and inexplicable to us, lies under our very eyes all around. There is a point in all human reasoning, where something must be taken without proof, if reason itself is not to sink into the void where folly reigns, and madness rages. As to inability to believe like his neighbors — were he as humble as they . DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 179 were ; had he confessed his sins and re- pented of them as they had; had he quietly and trustfully prayed daily as they do, belief would have been as easy to him as to them. Without tJiose things it is easy to no one. Nor is the question of personal sin a rash judg- ment. Without certain fixed moral re- straints and instructive guidance in youth, it is impossible for any one to escape falling^ into temptation, and hav- ing sinned, and sin remaining, a parti- tion is raised between God and the soul. Until that is removed the peace of be- lieving will never come. It was not for nothing we were told, " Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God." This implies its converse, Unblessed are the unclean of heart, for they cannot see God. I remember the Queensland " slop-shop " keeper who told me to write him down an atheist. He said this was a country of free thought, and he did not want any more trouble than his business gave him. Reply. — True, every one was free, hefore the law^ to think as he pleased, but there was a higher law before which he was not free, else why did he not with equal freedom thinh he was not to die; think that he could arrange for his continued 180 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. existence just as it suited him ; that, he could not do. Therefore, there was a Power superior to him of which he had better take account. His business no doubt demanded attention and should have it, but a day would come when business and all he ever gained by it, should stay behind, and he would have to go forth alone, as little consulted as when he was sent here. Is it not a little daring, then, to brave a Power so much greater than he, and not try to find out what that Power requires to be done, beyond mere business, which is not the ultimate end of man? I remember the old fellow on an Ameri- can "ranch" who boasted — being then in the very "sere leaf," indeed — that he never had done anything wrong (in his numerous family such a thing as prayer was unknown) ; he was not afraid to die. He had been pretty successful after a hard struggle in this life, and if there happened to be another life, he would struggle there too, and no doubt meet with the same suc- cess. Moreover, he had been a good Mason and everybody knew that the Free Masons were too great a body to fear anything or anybody? " They were all right." Heply, — A seared conscience is the great- est of calamities. It is the eternal judg- DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 181 ment already passed. It is a most diffi- cult thing to revivify with new sap. But it is the only chance. It may be done by convincing this self-satisfied soul that he had done wrong, by omission for in- stance. " Remember to keep holy My Sabbath day," was that never infringed ill course of your long life? " Thou shalt adore thy God and Him only shalt thou serve." You rarely, if ever, even acknowledged Him by prayer, and so forth. As for that confidence in the great Masonic body, be not deceived about their importance or help. Why, they were unheard of before the seven- teenth century and originated among the Socinians and other free-thought Protest- ants of these comparatively recent times. As a mutual help society you may have derived certain money benefits from it, but its methods are suspect to all candid minds. If all its objects are good why act like conspirators and bind people by oath and (sometimes) under penalty of death to secrecy V It becomes apparent every day that their methods are either foolish or wicked. They are losing caste among all sensible and respectable people, and it may be safely predicted that, in time, this sensational association will die oblivion's death, like all other absurd 182 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. conspiracies. The first notice ever taken of them by the Popes, was in 1738. Clement XII. explained who they were, and what were their objects, and forbade all Catholics to have anything to do with them. If they had existed always throughout Europe is it likely that the watchful head of European society, the Pope, would never have heard of them before or noticed them? — most unlikely. This condition of soul in old age always arises, from keeping the mind in culpable religious ignorance through life. If people would read even the Catechism occasionally this could never happen. I remember the Colonial young lady — High school graduate — who professed to believe in nothing, and was heard to long for some one to arise who should free the world from this "bother" about religion. Meply, — (I regret to say that this case is but a type of numerous young ladies to be met in the Colonies, as an outcome of free, compulsory and secular education. While I was in Wellington, N. Z., a young girl of 19 walked out one fine summer morning from her parents' well- to-do-home, furnished with sketching materials, and sat down in the public park apparently for a practice in draw- ing, of which she was rather fond. After DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 183 a while, she there deliberately took a pistol from her pocket and blew her brains out!) The best remedy for our young friend, whom ever^^body admit- ted to be as amiable as she was fair, turned out to be association with a good Catholic family in which there were well- brought up young girls like herself, who did not preach to her or at her, but who won her by the happy and unostentatious example of their own lives, and in time of need did her a gentle and generous service. I remember the amiable and hospitable lady born far south of the Equator, who was '^trying Theosophy ; " liked it very well, but had not got so far as to reconcile herself to the fact that her four beautiful children had already been cats or mice or snakes, may be, in the pre-existence of the second or third plano-spliere ; her husband was a Itosecrucian and very deep in the occult. Heply : — I gave her a ' ' Life of Madame Blavatsky," by a gentleman of St. Petersburg, whose work has been trans- lated into English and published at the cost of the London " Psychical Kesearch Society." That work must conclusively end forever, in all reasonable and respect- able minds, the theosophic craze. On 184 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. her evidence Madame Blavatsky is proved to be but a clever adventuress, who did not stick at the meanest tricks of a charlatan to deceive and delude her dupes. This book may be had from any London book agent, and is most useful to have just now to lay Mahatmas and spooJcs. I remember the man who was puzzled to know — if Christ were God and came to redeem the world, why was it not visibly redeemed? Did the world, as we see it, look as if it were redeemed? The world is full of sin, and suffering, and death. Then he told a story of a poor old negro Metho- dist of Carolina, who had had '' salvation '' preached at him all his life, and who was very religious in his own bothered way ; one day an earthquake happened that shook things up " pretty considerable " and scared the old man so that he took to his prayers. " Oh A' mighty God," he said, "you come right down heah and fix things up, but don't you send yo' Son dis time, come yo'self — dis job is too big and mebbe He can't do it." He excused the profanity by the great simplicity of the poor, old soul, but he had no doubt but the same idea was struggling through the old dark- ey's brain that was such a trouble to his own mind. The thing was de facto not accomplished. DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 185 Heply, — Redemption, as has always been explained, does not, primarily, regard the earthly condition of the race. Its effect is to make it possible for man to regain a title to the "eternal inheritance" — ''facta redemptione " — the price having been paid for him. The title had been hopelessly lost to him, and infinite repa- ration was needed — co-eqnal with the character of Him who was wronged, by revolt against His command. This was done through the Incarnation; and through that alone could it have been effected. But it has not ended man's state of probation — it now gives him a powerful and salutary motive for effort ; he is assured that he can earn the great reward, and his earning power, so to speak, is made effective and secure. It is not accurate to say, that there are no effects visible in the world from the Incarnation and its work. A vast change for the better has come over the lives of men, who by the good use of their free will Have lent themselves to the influence of Christianity. Compari- sons of Christian lives with the most cultured among ancient peoples, prove this beneficial change beyond all doubt. And the contemporary knowledge we have of peoples not yet Christianized, 186 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. affords evidence of Christianity's ele- vating and civilizing influence. If sin abounds and its necessary shadow, suffer- ing, it comes from the perverse use of a will left free to choose evil courses, which unfortunately the majority do, in spite of and in opposition to the teach- ings and protests of Christianity ; and so have apparently discredited by their conduct the work of the Redemption. Death for the good is not an evil ; you ought to be a little more advanced in reasoning power and intelligence than the " negro from Carolina." I remember the proprietor of a New Zea- land homestead picturesquely situated by the " wide Pacific strand " — a man of more than average education, who was very aggressive against all things of faith. His niind had even taken an angry turn. His mother, to whom he had been much at- tached, had died in the slow suffering of cancer. This incensed him against the supernal Power — he used to say, " If I could only get at it I " He assumed the role of an infidel propagandist on all occasions, even with his poor workmen. He had only two children. One had been baptized by the care of the grandmother, who was " an Anglican ; ' ' when she died he kept the second unbaptized — as an DIFFICULTIES AND THEIK ANSWERS. 187 experiment to show off against " the other fellow." He had made his gentle and amiable little wife as great an unbeliever as himself. Beply, — He was reared in the Anglican communion. Time has sadly demon- strated that private judgment is the portico of the free thought, which means thought utterly unbridled and un- licensed — a thing that is fast making human society unbearable, for rea- sonable and civilized men. Mrs. Bes- ant, the wife of an Anglican parson, has also informed the world that the sight of her first baby, agonizing in diphtheria, steeled her heart against God and religion. It is as unfair, as it is shallow, to charge to God every par- ticular of the condition of secondary ' causes who are free agents and endowed with faculties for self-help and midual protection. It looks a fair bargain that the First Cause should have given over a portion of His creation to such agents furnished with sufficient capital, so to speak, to get along. He added to it besides a great liberality of treatment-, never interfering with them for their allotted time, withdrawing his visible presence lest it should inconvenience or hamper them in any way; and for all 188 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. that only exacting a reasonable service and acknowledgment. The accidents of all kinds occurring in this temporary con- dition of things, (and sickness and diseases are among them) regard the secondary agents. To expect Him to interfere in every case exceeds the limits of His part of the bargain as a Provisor generalis — the primary Providence. It is much to have been assured by Him, that full and just compensation shall be made to those w^ho submissively suffer; " Merces tua magna nimis.^^ It is charged, that it is inhumane in Him to look on at suffering, ahle to relieve and cure^ and not doing so; even men would not be so unfeeling were it in their power. But this is making God, human merely. We hear a good deal • from infidels about anthropomorphism^ which obtains, say they, when believers reduce God merely to human dimensions in their conception of Him. But what are they doing in the case discussed? Why, they are supposing God to be exactly like the human being, and blam- ing Him for not being so. A perpetual interference for relief of every pang or pain, no matter how prolonged, would upset the whole established order, which no rational being, at present, looks for. DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 189 If this state were Jinal perhaps we might, with a show of reason, look to Him for help at every turn. But it is not final, we know ; and the general expectation is, that the day of full compensation and explanation will surely come. With regard to the stupid and unfair experiment of this man with his un bap- tized boy, the same explanation holds good as was given above about redemp- tion. The effects await on the action of free will and its use, and the sacrament chiefly refers to the spiritual order and the eternal future state. Baptism is not a visible and miraculous transformation in the present; no one pretends that it is. The titled poet who returned a Buddhist from Japan, delights to dwell on the superiority of manners and bear- ing of Japanese children over Christian children. Besides that this depends on what kind of Christian children he has been acquainted with ; he forgets that we learn from other travelers in that country, as intelligently observant as he, that the Japs in general even from a tender age, are the most shamelessly lascivious of peoples — and the Chinese, as is well known, are hardly better. Finally, with regard to this man's wish "to get at" the great First Cause — 190 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. merely to fancy this little five-feet long creature " getting at " the mighty Maker of the universe, has something so sub- limely ludicrous in it, that it would amuse, if its impiety did not terrify. I remember the souls troubled about prayer. One said it was talking into a great silence ; it was hard not to grow tired of saying things all by yourself, to which no sound or word was ever heard in reply ; that it required a force of imagi- nation, which many people do not possess, to fancy God present with us or listening when we pray. JReply, — Prayer of course is not like a human conversation. It is impossible without faith. Prepared by what faith teaches about it; that there is a God who is interested in us because he owns us ; who wishes us to look on Him as a Father, and expects us to depend on and confide in Him; who is all power- ful, able, and willing to help in all things for our good — then with such conviction in mind, it will appear far from talking into void, or tiresome or needing imagina- tion. At the same time every one must confess to a kind of natural need of com- muning about himself with some one. This comes from the fact of our individ- uality. The peculiar and distinct per- DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 191 sonality each one has, makes us uncom- fortable to feel alone and isolated amid accidents and fortunes of a temporary existence. This is a natural pre-disposi- tion to prayer. It is evidenced in the child telling all about its little self and its con- cerns to its mother or its care-taker. Nov does the same want ever leave the man, which proves the reasonableness of the assertions of faith. Another had given up prayer because it seems so unmanly — cowardly in fact — to grovel perpetually, to bepraise and beg. Beply. — An unmanly or cowardly act is to refuse to face a danger, or to endure a hardship, or to shirk a painful or labor- ious task, when duty and a greater good call on us to do and dare. Where do we do any of these mean things in prayer? We feel our dependence, knowing we have been created by a Power superior to ourselves, exalting the qualities of that Creator, idealizing His great and good attributes, is so far from groveling that it exalts our idea of ourselves — in- creases our esteem for ourselves and gives us courage. It is only fair and just in us and manly too, to acknowledge our dependence. We ask to be strengthened as to what He wants us to do, and make ready to do it at any cost 192 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. or trouble to ourselves. Recognizing in ourselves an inherent weakness to do what is good and noble, we seek His help and encouragement to overcome our slug- gish inclinations. What is cowardly or unmanly in all that? Why, it is brave and manly, and rational. We break His commands and sue for pardon. If we did not, it would be con- tempt to the High Court and most in- sulting to Him. Among ourselves men do not commend or admire the braggart or desperado, who violates his country's laws and despises its courts of justice. The man who assaults a battery of Maxim guns with a pea-shooter or a pop- gun, is not set down among the manly and the brave — he is a fool. Not less a fooJ is the man who daunts the Ominipo- tent and braves the eternal punishment. You have to study the difference be- tween the brave man and a fool. Another was troubled at seeing people in long hours of prayer before the altar at such times as the Qjiaranf ore^ or ]N"uns and Monks in their chapels — they come and go and never the slightest notice taken of them, or at least sign of approval — how wearisome ! Beply. — These good people know what they are doing. They are quite satisfied DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS, 193 about the silence, recognize it as part of the trial of faith, and are content to await the end, knowing that the day for silence will be over soon and knowl- edge of all things imparted. I was once surprised to find in a novel of the sensuous school this sentence : " When men and women rise from prayer and find themselves better, that prayer is answered." That is the only notice those good souls want or expect. Another found a great difficulty in the text of Matt. vi:7, where much speaking in prayer is forbidden by our Lord ; in fact He there confines all prayer to one short form — the Our Father — and the direct contradiction to that, in the voluminous prayer-books and Breviaries, is sanctioned and enjoined by the Church. Re'ply. — That text is aimed at the cor- rection of one special abuse — the osten- tatious and empty piety of the Pharisees — as may plainly be seen by reading the whole passage. In other places when not addressing Himself to an abuse, our Lord mculcates frequent and repeated prayer and gave the example Himself of long prayer — prolixius orahat. The Our Father is a short form, it is 13 194 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. true, but prayers of all kinds, no matter how long, are nothing but the expan- sion of that divine compendium, as ascetic writers often demonstrated. Another adduced puzzling cases of people who prayed long and earnestly for a mani- festly good thing and were not heard — one especially about people weakly addicted to the drink habit. He had known some who w^ere so ashamed and conscious of that terrible weakness, that they left nothing undone, followed strictly every spiritual advice, novenas, communions, confessions, for help, and to no avail — they fell again and again. Beply, — It is nowhere taught that mira- cles follow prayers on all occasions. Neither must it be looked for, that prayer should result in loss of will- powder in the petitioner in any given ac- tion or habit — one's will is not suddenly taken away and grace substituted for it. We must be satisfied to struggle against temptation aided by grace, with a will very much inclined to the evil whose habit we culpably began. In the case cited there were relapses, it is true, but to my knowledge there were intervals of abstention and improvement, and that was a decided gain. We can not know the workings of an individual DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 195 soul, or what flaw there may be in its disposition, to account for failure, but it is there, be assured, lies the cause. Our Lord promised that everything we ask the Father in His name shall be granted — yes, but it must be in every- thing — in matter and disposition — en- tirely worthy of the holy name we ask in. I remember the soul distressed by the sight of a crucifix; the thought would keep rising. What kind of a Being or Justice can that be, who could look upon a spec- tacle so horrible and be pleased or placated or appeased by it or even accept it at all? Then the question would come — If that is God — if Christ is God — have we not the curious situation of God offering Himself to Himself — Himself suffering that His own self or His own Justice may be satis- fied? There are souls wKo would rather suffer any loss themselves than accept anything so cruel from another. Heply. — This opens up the whole mystery of the Incarnation, and it is a very great one. We can never hope to fathom that here below. Convince yourself of hav- ing been assured on very good authority, accepted by millions as wise as you, that unless that happened it would fare very badly with you and with all this world. Kelieve yourself also with the opinion. 196 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. that all the cruel details of that sacrifice were not essential, because a word — an act — one tear of a divine and hu7nan person y would have been price enough ' for many condemned races — all his actions being of infinite value — but Christ chose Himself to undergo them to increase men's notion of the great guilt of sin and offer a striking contra- diction in His own person to pride, lust, and guilty indulgences, to which all men are, as everybody knows, and as he foreknew, so prone. It is not accurate to say that God of- fered Himself to Himself barely. There was present in the offering the human nature which He assumed suffering, too, and whose suffering clothed round by a divine personality, became infinite in value and co-equal with the magnitude of an of- fense done to infinite justice and majesty. About souls suffering loss rather than accept for themselves so cruel a sacri- fice — they little know what they are talking about. On the assurance of revelation there is nothing more certain than that, if that loss did overtake them, they would be eternally sorry for their pride-inspired and ignorant folly. I remember others disturbed by reading about the world in the time of Christ. It DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. l97 was in a very bad state — there were teem- ing populations in the Farther East, in India, Thibet, China, Japan — Brahmins, Buddhists, Confucians, Shinto idol wor- shipers. Black Africa was crowded with naked savage cannibals reveling in lust, slaughter, blood, cruelty — worse than the horrors there to-day, no doubt. The vast Roman Empire had altars for impure idols and temples for a hundred gods. The islands of antipodean seas were peopled as now, with fearful flesh-eating tribes. Christ came to teach and to save all, yet He seemed to take no care at all about these hundreds of millions, living and dying while He lived. He never alluded to their exist- ence. His work was restricted — very local. A very small number knew he was there at all, and fewer still knew him for the Messiah, and when He died, notwith- standing all His miracles, scarcely any at all believed or were converted. Beply. — The same difficulty shadows the whole history of the Jews. It lies in the words chosen "people. The fact is cer- tainly before us that they were divinely favored before all other and more numer- ous peoples. At the same time it clears away a good deal of the mystery to remember that «Z^ peoples in the far-back centuries were Hebrews once — all of the 198 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. one stock. The human race was once small in number, but in the growth and vast increase there was a dispersion-pro- cess and a winnowing according to deserts ; and God dealt to each the meas- ure of His justice and treatment of His wisdom, just as they deserved from Him. Abraham and his seed deserved best from Him and so were made His favored agents. The rest were permitted to wander apart and left to their own devices, just as we see most of them still — yellow, red, brown and black men — idolaters and cannibals. Christ did not choose to appear simul- taneously and preach to them all, though being divine. He might have done so, it is true. Equally true that mill- ions still remain ignorant of Him and His divine mission. But to argue with justice from this and similar facts, regarding peoples, we should know the whole state of the case — concerning the history of their conduct and deal- ings with God. Manifestly we do not know, and never can know that ; so it is but reasonable to assume a neutral, if a waiting, attitude. Had Christ come in that clearly superhuman character, then the present order of trial would have there and then ended. Belief should have been DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 199 compelled, and faith dispensed with. That kind of coming, however, is prom- ised and will happen — when all things shall be made manifest. As to the fewness of the converted, notwithstanding all the miracles our Lord performed, it must be remembered that the immense numbers — 5,000 after one sermon and 3,000 after another — who became Christians immediately on the apostle's preaching Christ crucified and risen, must have been those who had seen Him and witnessed His miracles, and some the subjects of them in their own persons, else they would never have yielded so readily, I remember those again who were sad- dened in mind and doubtful of a divine goodness by the cruelties of life ; the hid- eous deformities and diseases, the slow agony of wasting cancers and leprosy and the like ; the blood-thirstiness that breaks out in all mankind, savage and civilized alike; then the cruelties of the animal world ; all the fierce beasts and poisonous things ; tigers, lions, snakes, jaguars, wild elephants, sharks and sword-fish, vultures, hawks, eagles — the butcher bird that impales its living food on a thorn and sits watching its writhings — the sea louse that eats into the spinal marrow of the 200 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. whale and drives the monster mad — the Kea of New Zealand that digs its beak into the flesh of the live sheep for the kidney fat and only that — who gave them all those pitiless instincts? Hejply. — Why should such things trouble your mind? Have you personally any great reaso^ to complain of God's good- ness to you? If unhappily there are people subject to the fearful ills that flesh is heir to, as a consequence of the aboriginal blight of evil, has not God imparted instincts of compassion and mutual help to his creatures? All are not so afflicted — far from it — only the few, very few, comparatively, and it generally comes from the accidents oc- casioned by secondary causes ; and is it not beautiful to see the sane always ready to succor the unsound, exhibit- ing rare and unselfish virtue, and confer- ring comparative happiness on the af- flicted? Men are thus made the vice- regents — the secondary Providence of God to one another in the world. The old scholastics have discussed the ani- mals and their ways. It was their opin- ion that, having been made for man, and originally subject to him, it was part of his penalty when he fell, that the animals should break away from him into a wild DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 201 state and become his enemies, and thus diverted, by his fault, from their original destination, they have ramped about, soured — lost — waste parts of the crea- tion, in fact, ever since; but the Creator has not left man at their mercy; man still holds the upper hand, in the main, as everybody knows. Human blood-thirstiness is the ruinous part of a structure that once was noble, and which still shows not unsightly bits of what it originally was. It can only be accounted for on the ground of the fall into moral evil — the failure in the first trial of freewill — another part of sin's penalty. The instances of set and deliberate cruelty of animals are far from being authenticated, nor are such practises uni- form and habitual. A sheep farmer of long experience in New Zealand told me, that the Kea bird learned to locate the kidney fat of the sheep from his habit of prowling about the station slaughter-yard and picking at the sheep-skins spread out to dry with the wool down. The most toothsome bit was this fat in the region of the kidneys or liver, and when the skins were not there to be picked, he went for the sheep on the hills and locat- ing the part where he got his so-appe- 202 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. tizing morsel, he fastened his claws in the wool and sunk his beak in the soft flesh above the haunches, even then he did not always strike the fat directly either, or neatly! Other birds, from imitative habit, copied the knowing ones and so this curious custom of theirs came to be. For the rest, what are animals to you ; you have not created them ; you are not responsible for them? They are very near us, and they are as far away from us as mystery ; they are strangers to us in reality. They live their own peculiar life and there's an end of it. I remember others, and they were many, who were incensed against the doctrine of Hell. Some felt that a Being who could look on at the tortures of his own creature for eternity, could not be an object of any one's love, admiration and adoration; others, that they were doing God a service, vindicating Him, by repudiating what they called a horrible doctrine; others asserted that it was a fiction invented by men to hold other men in subjection by force of terror — a horrid nightmare imposed on human minds by the designing and so on. Reply, — ^"0 doubt Hell is an awful doc- trine. 1S(0 use in saying that it is easy to be calmly reconciled to it. But there DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 203 is no use either in denying it. Viewing the minds of men as a whole, we find that in every time, it formed an inseparable portion of religious belief. This ex- trinsic evidence throws doubt at once on your denial. And the thing is so awful that — presented evjen as doubtful — it should urge every one to take no risk, to seek further and make himself very sure that he is making no mistake about what may result in such a frightful disaster to himself. For it is said to be eternal and a punishment. Then he should remember that if this be so, no amount of assertion or repudia- tion on his part can in the least alter the fact. And if our Lord ever revealed anything about the unseen in unmistak- able terms, it was this sombre fact. There is one comfort at any rate. We are not there yet, and there are ways of escaping going there. And the ways are so well known and within such easy reach, that we can be morally sure of never having to go there, if we like. The only reason why any one goes to that dreadful place, is that he departs from life in a state of overt rebellion and contempt for the great Creator, who gave him his being. Where else could he go? Surely he could not expect to 204 THE REACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE. be cordially greeted and richly rewarded and welcomed hospitably, after such reck- less and daring conduct as his. Those who have power in this world are not accustomed to welcome to their homes, and dine, and be hail-fellows with the men who despise their authority and trample on the laws — such a thing was never heard of. Do you think it will be any different in the realm beyond the grave? The love of God comes irresistibly with serving him and acknowledging Him — above all, with a good conscience. The truth is, a good deal of this questioning about Hell arises from not having a good conscience and knowing very well why — having got into scrapes by sinning freely, it takes a lot of whistling to keep up courage, like the boy passing through the graveyard. When you pass in your walks by a convict-prison, you know very well there is a painful state of things go- ing on there — fellow-beings undergoing severe and often dreadful punishment. You return to your dinner none the less with appetite unimpaired. You do not rail against the judge and are not the least angry with the jury who convicted. Why? Because you very sensibly say — Justice demanded it. '' But it need not be eternal," yousay. To assert that, you must DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR ANSWERS. 205 be in a position to understand all about God's justice, which you are not, that be- ing infinite, and above our limited com- prehension. Besides, between you and me, is there anything less than the sanc- tion of eternal punishment that will re- strain the run of men from vice? You know there is not. Your rearrangement of things for God, is, to say it without wishing to be impolite, an impertinence. It does not concern us ; we are not mas- ters here. If there is one thing clearer than another, it is that we are wholly de- pendent — otherwise we could settle down comfortably and arrange to stay in life as long as we pleased. But we cannot stay. Some one will call some day. So it is wisest to prepare to go in submission, and you may be sure everything will be right with us. The general disposition of things here below and our destinies are not in our hands, but it is given to us to make the best of them and, turning them to our advantage, we need not go to Hell. '* But enough — the famous and devout author of the "Imitation" propounds rather dogmatically that " they who travel much are rarely (without the emphasis) sanctified" — by the way, how did he know since he never went anywhere? — 206 THE BEACTION FROM AGNOSTIC SCIENCE, but be that as it may, the widely-traveled meet, by the waysides and on the high- roads of life, many odd specimens of humanity and fall in with curious phases of human psychology. If their experi- ences take a little of the spiritual shine off themselves, there is left them a com- pensation from the good, or instruction, or pleasure that others may derive from reading those experiences even in the very humble way here presented. THE END. GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY BDD0S0a755