That a man should be able to forget God, and live as if there were no
such Being, is strange. It is one instance of that awful power of
ignoring the most important subjects, of which every life affords so
many and tragic instances. It seems as if we had above us an opium sky
which rains down soporifics, go that we are fast asleep to all that it
most concerns us to wake to. But still stranger is it that, having that
power of attending or not attending to subjects, we should so commonly
exercise it on _this_ subject. For, as the ox that knows the hand that
feeds him, and the ass that makes for his 'master's crib' where he is
sure of fodder and straw, might teach us, the stupidest brute has sense
enough to recognise who is kind to him, or has authority over him, and
where he can find what he needs. The godless man descends below the
animals' level. And to ignore Him is intensely stupid. But it is worse
than foolish, for