Some who deny the existence of spirit apart from matter allow that the
greatness of man consists in his being an eating animal. Others allow
that it lies in the fact that he is a working animal; while some have
allowed that it was found in the fact that he is a fighting animal. And
all _infidels_ agree in one thing, viz.: that man is simply an animal.
But the animal nature of man is not to be considered, with any degree of
truth, his crown of glory; his true greatness can not be identified with
it. We are acquainted with animals that can eat more, and seem to do it
with a greater relish. Others can run faster, jump higher, overcome
greater weight and outdo him in all manner of physical labor. They are
in possession of greater courage and fight with greater ferocity. So we
must search for man's greatness outside of all these elements of
character. Can we find no brighter, higher principles in the human
character? To do so we must lay aside the animal nature of man
altogether, and consider his character as it is blended with his
intellectual and moral nature. In other words, we must consider man as
man, not as an animal. We must consider him as a mind or spirit, and
look to something higher than eating, laboring at the helm, and
fighting, if we would discover his true greatness. In the improvement of
mind is the true improvement of man in all his relations. Without this
he is unqualified for all the various obligations that are necessary to
be discharged in order to the development of true greatness. To be great
a man must rise above the little, the mean, the vile and the degraded.
To do this he must be educated, trained, until the fruits of a virtuous
and useful intelligence are seen in his every-day life. Men are not
considered great nor admired for the simple development of physical
nature.
Infidels claim that cultivated literature is incompatible with religion.
It has been said that a man of ardent piety can not produce a work that
will live in after ages. This is a libel upon the truth, and upon him
who said: "I am the truth."
Faith in God certainly places the maximum of greatness upon the human
mind. The man who believes in the existence of mind apart from matter,
and consequently looks upon death as a blessed state of rest to the good
man which lies between the two great activities of time and eternity,
and also believes in God and future rewards, has stronger motives to
sound moral rectitude than the man who denies and ridicules these great
truths. "The seat of law is the bosom of God, and her voice is the
harmony of the world." It is respect for law that brings
responsibilities home to the heart. Where there is no faith there is no
respect for law pertaining to future rewards; and where this is the case
there is no sense of moral obligations connecting man with the future
retribution. So there is nothing resting upon an unbeliever's heart that
will serve as a check upon his passions, and deter him from living with
reference to the gratification of a mere animal nature. Skepticism, by
shutting God out of the mind, destroys the very idea of law. Cicero's
description of law is in these noble words: There is one true and
original law conformable to reason and to nature, diffused over all,
invariable, eternal, which calls to the fulfillment of duty and to
abstinence from injustice, and which calls with that irresistible voice
which is felt in all its authority wherever it is heard. This law can
not be abolished or curtailed, nor affected in its sanctions by any law
of man. A whole senate, a whole people, can not dispense from its
paramount obligations. It requires no commentators to render it
intelligible; nor is it different at Rome, at Athens, from what it was
ages ago, nor is it different now from what it will be in ages to come.
In all nations and in every age it has been, is, and forever will be the
same--_one_, as God, its greatest author, _is one_. Man is man, _truly_,
as he yields himself to this divine influence. Faith in God implants
this law in the individual and national heart. Infidelity excludes its
authority and influence and leaves man to the mercy of his undisciplined
appetites. The fruits of infidelity have always been selfishness. The
Christian believer regards himself as subordinated to a higher power,
and labors under a sense of obligations which begets habits of
self-control that are the life of morality. The ideal character of the
Christian religion is such that faith in God and future rewards tend to
make the earth life an image of the divine. This is the glory of both
reason and faith, that it perceives the invisible. The students of the
present have no trouble to see that the true greatness of the nation of
antiquity was in their attribute of morality. Virtue and morality in an
ancient ruler shines in history even across the dark ages, and makes
glad the heart of the student of the nineteenth century. Faith in God
has been the great leading thought in the rise of nations--that is, in
reformations. Luther and Melancthon preceded Lord Bacon, Newton and
Locke. The few stars that lit up the gloomy night that preceded the
reformation and the revival of literature were lighted by the faith of
God. Speaking of this fact, Dr. Goode says: "We behold a flood of
noonday bursting all at once over every quarter of the horizon and
dissipating the darkness of a thousand years; we behold mankind in
almost every quarter of Europe, from the Carpathian Mountains to the
pillars of Hercules, from the Tiber to the Vistula, waking as from a
profound sleep to a life of activity and bold adventure; ignorance
falling prostrate before advancing knowledge; brutality and barbarism
giving way to science and polite letters; vice and anarchy to order and
moral conduct.
"The modern opposers of Christianity, reasoning in a retro-grade
motion--that is, going backwards--ascribe every improvement to science
and philosophy, but it was religion that took the lead in _both_ the
great revival of learning and the reformation. Aldhelm, Bede and Alcuin
were three great Anglo-Saxon luminaries of the eighth century. Alcuin
was the tutor and confidential friend of Charlemagne. Ingulph, made
abbot of Croyland by William the Conquerer, was the bright light of the
eleventh century. To him we are indebted for much that has come down to
us. John of Salisbury, Girald the Cambrian, and the monk Adelard, and
Robert of Reading were all religious leaders. The last two traveled in
Egypt and Arabia, studied mathematics at Cordovia. Adelard translated
Euclid out of Arabic into Latin. Such also was Alfred the Great, who was
victorious in prosperity and adversity, as a legislator and philosopher,
as a soldier and politician, a king and a Christian; he was the pride of
princes, the flower of society and the delight of mankind." Roger Bacon,
of notoriety on account of his superior knowledge of physics, was the
bright Christian light of the thirteenth century. From this century all
the way through the reformation the revival of faith in God was the
revival of the golden age of learning or literature. When faith in God
expired in France the entire social fabric steadily declined until all
crumbled and fell as in the ruins of an earthquake. At the same time the
inhabitants, loosened from the restraints which faith in the living God
imposes, stained every part of the country with blood, and its glory and
grandeur perished. It has been well said that the rights of man can not
be well secured and enjoyed unless he is viewed in his relations to God.
Where government aims at and subserves this end it is a blessing.
Blackstone has well remarked that the whole should protect all its
parts, and that every part should pay obedience to the will of the
whole; or, in other words, that the community shall guard the rights of
each individual member, and that in return for this protection each
individual should submit to the law of the community. Faith lets God
down into the hearts of lawmakers, and a sense of accountability to him
must, most certainly, have a grand tendency to refine laws in their
first conception. At least it happens to be true that wherever God is
feared and law made the basis of the legislation and policy of a nation,
that nation is, in fact, found to excel in those interests which are
essential to a nation's well-being and glory. We challenge any man, or
set of men, to an estimate of the comparative purity and morals of the
nations of the earth. It is, and forever will be, found to correspond
with their religious systems. The great conflict which is now going on
in every civilized country is a conflict between faith and infidelity.
For the triumph of light and truth the very throne of God is pledged.
There may be difficulties to encounter, but these will be vanquished. As
well undertake to pluck the sun and stars from the heavens, and spread
the black curtain of one long protracted night over the world, as to try
to quench the light of immortal truth as it flows freely into the hearts
of so many millions and stirs up the deep fountains of human spirits.
* * * * *
"Owing to the attitude of the churches for the last fifteen hundred
years truth-telling has not been a very lucrative business."--_Col.
Ingersoll._
The Colonel's business _has been very lucrative_, therefore his _has not
been a truth-telling business_.