Mr. Fawcett has shown conclusively that it is no easier to establish the
existence of an infinitely wise and good being by the existence of what
we call "good" than to establish the existence of an infinitely bad
being by what we call "bad."
Nothing can be surer than that the history of this world furnishes no
foundation on which to base an inference that it has been governed by
infinite wisdom and goodness. So terrible has been the condition of
man, that religionists in all ages have endeavored to excuse God by
accounting for the evils of the world by the wickedness of men. And the
fathers of the Christian Church were forced to take the ground that this
world had been filled with briers and thorns, with deadly serpents
and with poisonous weeds, with disease and crime and earthquake and
pestilence and storm, by the curse of God.
The probability is that no God has cursed, and that no God will bless,
this earth. Man suffers and enjoys according to conditions. The sun
shines without love, and the lightning blasts without hate. Man is the
Providence of man.
Nature gives to our eyes all they can see, to our ears all they can
hear, and to the mind what it can comprehend. The human race reaps the
fruit of every victory won on the fields of intellectual or physical
conflict. We have no right to expect something for nothing. Man will
reap no harvest the seeds of which he has not sown.
The race must be guided by intelligence, must be free to investigate,
and must have the courage and the candor not only to state what is
known, but to cheerfully admit the limitations of the mind.
No intelligent, honest man can read what Mr. Fawcett has written and
then say that he knows the origin and destiny of things--that he knows
whether an infinite Being exists or not, and that he knows whether the
soul of man is or is not immortal.
In the land of--------, the geography of which is not certainly known,
there was for many years a great dispute among the inhabitants as to
which road led to the city of Miragia, the capital of their country, and
known to be the most delightful city on the earth. For fifty generations
the discussion as to which road led to the city had been carried on with
the greatest bitterness, until finally the people were divided into a
great number of parties, each party claiming that the road leading
to the city had been miraculously made known to the founder of that
particular sect. The various parties spent most of their time putting up
guide-boards on these roads and tearing down the guide-boards of others.
Hundreds of thousands had been killed, prisons were filled, and the
fields had been ravaged by the hosts of war.
One day, a wise man, a patriot, wishing to bring peace to his country,
met the leaders of the various sects and asked them whether it was
absolutely certain that the city of Miragia existed. He called their
attention to the facts that no resident of that city had ever visited
them and that none of their fellow-men who had started for the capital
had ever returned, and modestly asked whether it would not be better
to satisfy themselves beyond a doubt that there was such a city, adding
that the location of the city would determine which of all the roads was
the right one.
The leaders heard these words with amazement. They denounced the speaker
as a wretch without morality, spirituality, or reverence, and thereupon
he was torn in pieces.