The unreasonableness and unfairness of infidels, or otherwise their
ignorance, is manifested in their unwillingness to interpret the
literature of religion as they do the language of the sciences. In
scientific literature we speak of the earth as a sphere, and infidels
never think of objecting that it is "pitted with hollows deep as ocean's
bottom," and "crusted with protuberances high as the Himalaya," in every
imaginable form. "There is not an acre of absolutely level ground" known
on the face of the earth, and yet when we speak of land, saying it is
level, no infidel demurs. The waters pile themselves in waves and dash
in breakers, yet we say, "Level as the ocean," and none object.
The smallest formations present the same regular irregularities of form.
Crystals approach the nearest to mathematical figures, but they break
with compound irregular fractures at their bases of attachment. Nature
gives no perfect mathematical figures; they only approximate
mathematical perfection. Infidels do not trouble themselves with science
on this account. "The utter absence of any regularity or assimilation to
the spheroidal figure, either in meridianal, equatorial or parallel
lines, mountain ranges, sea beaches or courses of rivers, is fatal to
mathematical accuracy in the more extended measurements. It is only by
taking the mean of a great many measurements that an approximate
accuracy can be obtained. Where this is not possible, as in the
measurement of high mountains, the truth remains undetermined by
hundreds of feet; or as in the case of the earth's spheroidal axis,
Bessel's measurement differs from Newton's by fully eleven miles." See
Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. 1, p. 7, 156. "The smaller measures are
proportionally inaccurate." All these irregularities and imperfections
in science are overlooked, considered not in the least objections to the
use of language which would, upon the most rigid application, cut them
out as fables on the one hand or destroy science upon the other; but no
sensible man thinks of either as a matter allowable.
On the other side, Infidels are "eternally" mouthing about
irregularities in the lives of the ancient men of the Bible, which are
exceptions to the general rule, just as though religious persons could
live lives of absolute perfection. The language, also, of the Bible,
which, like the language of science, takes no notice of irregularities
that must be expected in the lives of the very best men upon the earth,
is by them abused. For instance, "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is
perfect," is construed to mean that God is a man God, clothed with human
imperfections, or, otherwise, man is imperatively required to be
absolutely perfect. All such abuse of language is contemptible. Many
other examples might be adduced--such as the irregularities in the words
employed by the witnesses of the resurrection of Christ, which do not
affect the evidence of the fact to be established in the least degree,
and which are just such irregularities as are witnessed in evidence
given in court rooms almost daily, and passed without so much as being
noticed. For example, one witness says Mary Magdalene "came very early
to the sepulchre," and another says she came "about sunrise." If all
Christians were to treat the literature of science, and science itself,
as these would-be wise Infidels treat the literature of religion, and
religion itself, it would be surprising to run over the absurdities as
well as irregularities of scientific history. There are irregularities
in nature, and their name is legion; they all belong to that wonderfully
boasted harmony of nature so much talked of in our day. As for the
mistakes made in religion since the days of the apostles of the Christ,
they are many; but what have they to do with the _genuine_?
How many mistakes have scientists made in the same period of time? I
shall not try to ape the infidel, but I must be permitted to call
attention to a few of the many scientific blunders.
Perhaps the greatest blunder of the present day, upon the part of
scientists, is their attempt to bring into disrepute the cosmogony
given in the Bible by a scientific cosmogony, which leaves off as
"unknown" the only active world-forming force. They arrogantly assume to
be acquainted with the entire history of our planet from the atoms to
the globe. Yet they acknowledge that the "force which was and is in
operation was and is unknown; that unknown force had its influence in
framing the world," and its omission is always fatal to the theory which
knows nothing about it or neglects it. There are laws also far-reaching,
whose omission must be equally fatal.
Infidels, being sensible of this truth, have endeavored to simplify
matters to the level of our ignorance, by reducing all primordial
elements to one, or at most two, simple elements, and all forces to the
form of one universal and irrational law; but the progress of science
utterly blasts the effort. No scientific man now dreams of one
primordial element. Chemistry reveals a great many different elements,
which can not be reduced or changed from their simple forms, much less
identified as one and the self-same "substance." The idea of "one
substance" _only_ is a very great error, which grew out of an abuse of
language in confounding the two words, matter and substance. The latter
word is equally applicable to _matter_, or _spirit_, but the former
always contrasts with spirit; so to confound the two is to ignore a
distinction upon which everything depends in any, except the
materialistic, philosophy. When the term substance is used in the
currency of the term matter it admits of the plural form as well as the
singular. Indeed, all the primordial elements known in chemistry are
known as so many different substances. It is unscientific and absurd to
confound all these elements by claiming the one-substance theory. It has
been called "the hog philosophy," on account of its swallowing down so
many _different_ substances in the single form of the word.
"Eighty theories, hostile to Christianity, developed in the course of
forty or fifty years, were brought before the Institute of France in
1806, all of which are repudiated"--dead. It is useless to go further
into details. Science has been as much abused as religion. What benefit
would accrue to the human family from an effort upon our part to bring
to the foreground all the blunders made in scientific researches which
are to-day numbered with the old effete errors in religion? And where is
the propriety of infidels making a set of asses of themselves by playing
upon the little irregularities of language and character in religion, as
they _themselves_ allow no man to do in science and morality.
"EQUAL HANDED JUSTICE" TO ALL, IS OUR MOTTO.