It may pay some persons to talk about a heavenly father who cares for his
earthly children, but we prefer to get money in a more honorable business.
Honor bright, now, gentlemen of the pulpit, did you ever see anything that
convinced you that there is a power in the universe outside of the human
body, that cared a snap for men, that showed any more love for a child
than for a crocodile? Tell the truth, and let us see how far apart we are
on this question.
We have no objection to being taken care of by a heavenly father, or by
any person or power that is wiser and kinder than man. But we do not want
to put our trust in such a being or power and then, just when we needed
most the help and counted on it, find that we had been deceived. We admit
the good that is in Nature, the beautiful, the attractive, but we cannot
put faith in the God of earthquakes. When we listen to a bird’s
full-throated song, and surrender ourselves in delicious rapture to the
spell of its wondrous melody, we are ready to acknowledge that a benignant
power gave life to this sweet little charmer, that can start such a flood
of joy in the human heart, but when in strolling among the meadow’s
blossoms we are confronted with the repulsive head and ominous attitude of
the rattlesnake, we ask: Who made you? We admire Nature in some forms, but
detest it in others. We pick the rose with a blessing on its perfect
beauty and perfumed breath, but we shun the white flower of the
dogwood—the poisonous hypocrite. When the sky is fair and blue, and a
smile is on the face of heaven, we feel that only kindness and love sit
enthroned above us, but when the blue changes to black and the smile to a
frown, which grows deeper and darker until the whole heavens threaten
destruction to earth; when the heedless lightning, with brutal stroke,
fells at our feet a form we love, we wonder where the kindness and love
have gone that we saw only a few hours before. Nature does not keep one
mood long. She has made things fair and things foul; she blesses, but she
curses also; she wins us with some temptation of beauty, and then punishes
us for yielding; she puts in our heart an angel of love, but she puts
there, too, a devil of hate; she caresses us one minute and kicks us the
next; she licks our hand, and then without warning she bites us.
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There is more power to-day in a drop of ink than in a ton of powder.
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A man may have respect for old age and not like to find gray hairs in his
butter.