which the atheist would have him when he is able to command that picture
of Faith which Wordsworth wrote:
I have seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell;
To which in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely, and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy,--for murmurings from within
Were heard, sonorous cadences! whereby,
To his belief the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.
Even such a shell the universe itself
Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times
I doubt not, when to you it doth impart
Authentic tidings of invisible things.
No! No! To found the problem or the actions of man on any one agent, and
to cut him off from God, is peurile! The reason of man necessitated the
discovery of gravitation, and it is to-day the best-established physical
fact before our view. The reason of man also demands a Creator, to endow
us with motives above our own development, and that reason, in the soul
of every man, atheist and Christian alike, must and will, secretly or
openly, have divine satisfaction.
The atheist, in these days, is the champion and the leader of a scrubby
lot of social and religious ideas. He should not "march them through
Coventry that's flat."