Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place,
(Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism,
Sailing on obscene wings, athwart the noon,
Drops his blue-fringed lids and holds them close,
And hooting at the glorious Sun in heaven,
Cries out: "Where is it?"--Coleridge.
The laugh of the foolish infidel and the sneer of the
solemn atheist are abroad in the land. The awful draught they hold to
the lips of humanity is well honeyed with some of the adjuncts of
religion itself, else the perilous cup would be rejected. Let us see how
the atheist secures his victim, for he is never content to enjoy alone
the extravagances of his folly. I have noticed that when a Democratic
editor receives dispatches containing news of a Republican victory, he
is frequently expert enough in the guile pertaining to his profession to
put a displayed heading on those same dispatches which clearly saves
the day for the Democrats--or _vice versa_. And I have also noticed that
it takes true mental pluck to rightly scan, first, that rooster of
roosters (invented during the last few years), then the ten lines of
Democratic Io Paians which follow, and lastly, the small type containing
the real facts.