Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith Part 31

Lyell, the acknowledged prince of geologists, is famous for his chronological blundering; of which his calculations of the age of the delta of the Mississippi is a very good American example. He calculates the quant.i.ty of mud in suspension in the water, and the area and depth of the delta, and says it must have taken sixty-seven thousand years for the formation of the whole; and if the alluvial matter of the plain above be two hundred and sixty-four feet deep, or half that of the delta, it must have required thirty-three thousand five hundred years more for its acc.u.mulation, even if its area be estimated at only equal to the delta, whereas it is in fact larger.[369] He makes no allowance for tidal deposits.

But Brig. Gen. Humphrey, of the United States Surveying Department, goes over Lyell's calculations, and shows that instead of 3,702,758,400 cubic feet of mud brought down by the Mississippi, as estimated by Lyell, the actual amount is 19,500,750,000,000; that the rate at which the delta is now advancing into the gulf is fifty feet per annum, and that the age of the delta and alluvial deposit is four thousand four hundred, instead of Lyell's one hundred thousand five hundred years.[370] We might go on and give a dozen such instances of geological miscalculations of time did s.p.a.ce permit; but these are enough to disabuse us of any faith in such calculations.

With such specimens before us of the miscalculations of the smaller periods by geologists, we are not surprised to find that they grossly exaggerate the larger cycles of time. The necessities of the evolution of the ascidian into the snail, of the snail into the fish, and of the fish into the lizard, of the lizard into the monkey, and of the monkey into the man, by slow and imperceptible changes, demanded an almost infinite length of time; and the geologists of that school accordingly a.s.serted the existence of animal life upon our globe for hundreds of thousands of millions of years.

But Sir Wm. Thompson, one of the first mathematicians, demonstrates[371]

the impossibility of any such length of time being spent in the process of cooling our little globe. Beginning with their own a.s.sumption, of a globe of molten granite cooling down to the present state, he proves that the earth can not have been in existence longer than a hundred millions of years; and of course that plants and animals have existed on it a much shorter time; as for the greater part of that period it was too hot for them. The geologists are now becoming ashamed of their poetical cycles, and some acknowledge that their chiefs blundered egregiously in their calculations.

The principles of geology seem to be as unsettled as its facts. There is no agreement upon any of its theories. The history of its theories, like that of their framers, begins with their birth, and ends with their burial. Each new theory placed the tombstone upon the preceding, and inscribed it with the brief record of the antediluvian, "and he died." A busy time they must have had with their Wernerian, Huttonian, and Diluvian hypotheses; not to mention the Hutchinsonian theory, the animal spirits flowing from the sun, the vegetative power of stories, and other sage and serious facts and theories, theological and philosophical, invented to account for the world's creation. "No theory," says Lyell, "could be so far-fetched or fantastical as not to attract some followers, provided it fell in with the popular notion." "Some of the most extravagant systems were invented or controverted by men of acknowledged talent." A more amusing exhibition of philosophical absurdity can not be found than those chapters which he devotes to "The Historical Progress of Geology,"[372] unless perhaps the scientific discussions of the erudite acquaintances of Lemuel Gulliver.

Let it not be supposed that the progress of inductive science, and the prevalence of the Baconian philosophy have banished absurdities and contradictions from the sphere of geology. It would require a man of considerable learning to find three geologists agreed, either in their facts, or in their theories. In a general way, indeed, we have the Catastrophists, with Hugh Miller, overwhelming the earth with dire convulsions in the geological eras, and upheaving the more conservative Lyell and the Progressionists; who affirm that all things continue as they were from the beginning of the world. And there is perhaps a general agreement now that the underlying _primitive_ rocks, so called, are not primitive at all, as geologists thought twenty years ago; but, like the foundations of a Chicago house, have been put in long after the building was finished and occupied. But then comes the question how they were inserted--whether as Elie de Beaumont thinks, the mountains were upheaved by starts, lever fas.h.i.+on, or, as Lyell affirms, very gradually, and imperceptibly, like the elevation of a brick house by screws.[373]

Nor is there the least likelihood of any future agreement among them; inasmuch as they can not agree either as to the thickness of the earth's solid crust which is to be lifted, or the force by which it is to be done? Hopkins proves by astronomical observation that it is eight hundred miles thick. Lyell affirms that at twenty-four miles deep there can be no solid crust, for the temperature of the earth increases one degree for every forty-five feet, and at that depth the heat is great enough to melt iron and almost every known substance. But then there is a difference between philosophers about this last test of solidity--those who believe in Wedgewood's Pyrometer, which was the infallible standard twenty years ago, a.s.serting that the heat of melted iron is 21,000 Fahrenheit; while Professor Daniells demonstrates by another infallible instrument that it is only 2,786 Fahrenheit;[374]

which is rather a difference. In one case the earth's crust would be over two hundred miles thick, in the other twenty-four. But then comes the great question, What is below the granite? and a very important one for any theory of the earth. It evidently underlies the whole foundation of speculative geology, whether we a.s.sume with De Beaumont and Humboldt, that "the whole globe, with the exception of a thin envelope, much thinner in proportion than the sh.e.l.l of an egg, is a fused ma.s.s, kept fluid by heat--a heat of 450,000 Fahrenheit, at the center, Cordier calculates--but constantly cooling, and contracting its dimensions;" and occasionally cracking and falling in, and "squeezing upward large portions of the ma.s.s;" "thus producing those folds or wrinkles which we call mountain chains;" or, with Davy and Lyell, that the heat of such a boiling ocean below would melt the solid crust, like ice from the surface of boiling water--and with it the whole theory of the primeval existence of the earth in a state of igneous fusion, its gradual cooling down into continents and mountains of granite, the gradual abrasion of the granite into the mud and sand which formed the stratified rocks, and all the other brilliant hypotheses which have sparked out of this great internal fire. Instead of an original central heat he supposes that "we may _perhaps_ refer the heat of the interior to chemical changes constantly going on in the earth's crust."[375] Now if the very foundations of the science are in such a state of fusion, and floating on a _perhaps_, would it not be wise to allow them to solidify a little before a man risks the salvation of his soul upon them?

The various theories are contradictions. The igneous theory a.s.sault the aqueous theory with the greatest heat; while the aqueous theorists pour cold water, in torrents, upon the igneous men. The shocks of conflicting glacier theories have shaken the Alps and convulsed all North America; and have not yet ceased. There are eleven theories of earthquakes, which have been, and are still, such energetic agents in geology; and the whole eleven afford not the least rational idea of their causes; nor of any means of preventing, predicting, or escaping their ravages. The best geologists have described fossil tracks as the footprints of gigantic birds, which others equally as authoritative p.r.o.nounce the tracks of frogs and lizards. Indeed, a good part of every geological treatise, and of the time of every a.s.sociation of geologists, is taken up with refutations of the errors of their predecessors.

There are no less than nine theories of the causes of the elevation of mountains; some scoop out the valleys by water; others by ice; others heave up the mountains by fire; and some by the chemical expansion of their rocks; while others still upheave them by the pressure of molten lava from beneath; and others again make them out to be the wrinkles of the contraction of the supposed crust of the liquid interior. Of all these theories an able geologist says: "The many proposed theories of mountain elevation are based upon a.s.sumptions which unfortunately are not true; but that is an unimportant matter to the majority of our speculating geologists; and one never seen by the inventors of the theories, who allow themselves to be led captive by a poetic imagination, instead of building their inductions upon field observations.

"Thus, to suppose that mountains are elevated by a wedge like intrusion of melted matter is to give to a fluid functions incompatible with its dynamic properties. So also the supposition that the igneous rocks were intruded, as solid wedges separating and lifting the crust, is opposed to the fact that no apparent abrasion, but generally the closest adhesion, exists at the line of contact of the igneous and stratified rocks. Equally fatal objections may be advanced against the other theories."[376]

Mult.i.tudes of the alleged facts of Infidel geologists are as apocryphal as their theories. Thus in a recent ponderous quarto volume, the production of half a dozen philosophers, this identical impossible theory--of the cooling of the earth's crust down to solidity, while an irresistible central heat remains below--is presented to the world as an ascertained fact; we are informed of the discovery of a human skull fifty-seven thousand years old, _in good preservation_; asked to believe that two tiers of cypress snags could not be deposited in the delta of the Mississippi in less than eleven thousand four hundred years; and to calculate that the delta of the Nile must have been a great many ages in growing to its present size, because it is quite certain that for the last three thousand years _it has never grown at all_.[377]

It were easy to fill a volume with such mistakes of geologists, but my limits restrict me to a few specimens. Silliman's Journal, in a review of "_The Geology of North America_, by Julius Marcoe, U. S. Geologist, and Professor of Geology in the Federal Polytechnic School of Switzerland; quarto, with maps and plates," says:

"The author describes the mountain systems of north America as _he supposes they must be_, according to the theoretical views of Elie de Beaumont." "Thus one single fossil--that one a species of pine, and only very much resembling the _Pinites Fleurotti_ of Dr.

Monguett--_establishes_ a connection between the New Red of France, and that of America. This is a very strong word for a geologist to use on evidence so small, _and so uncertain_, with the fate of four thousand or five thousand feet of rock at stake, and the beds beneath, containing 'perhaps Belemnites.' The prudent observer would have said, _establishes nothing_; and such is the fact." "_On such evidence_ a region over the Rocky Mountains, which is one thousand miles from north to south, and eight hundred miles from east to west, is for the most part colored in the maps as Tria.s.sic. Such a region would take in quite a respectable part of the continent of Europe." "We now know beyond any reasonable doubt, that all the country from the Platte to the British Possessions, and from the Mississippi to the Black Hills, is occupied by Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks. And as regards the region from the Platte southward to the Red River, very far the largest part _is known to be not Tria.s.sic_, while it is possible the Trias may occur in some parts of it." "It is unfortunate in its bearing on the progress of geological science to have false views about some five hundred thousand miles of territory, and much more besides, spread widely abroad through respectable journals, and transactions of distinguished European Societies."[378]

One can not but sympathize with the poor abused Rocky Mountains, tormented and misrepresented for a thousand miles by this French geologist. But our American patriotism may be partially pacified when we find that Europe fares no better; and that Great Britain, and Old Scotland, Hugh Miller's own cradle, which has been the very lecture room of geologists, has nevertheless been most grossly misrepresented in all books and maps, up till the last decade. The _Edinburgh Review_, a competent authority, says (No. cxxvii.): "The new light which has been thus thrown on the history of the geological series of Scotland (by Sir Roderick Murchison), showing that great ma.s.ses of crystalline rocks, called primary, and supposed to be much more ancient than the Silurian system, are here simply metamorphosed strata of that age, may with justice be looked upon as one of the most valuable results which have been attained by British geologists for many years." A very just remark indeed! If only geologists would learn a little modesty from this discovery, which completely turns upside down their old world-building process of grinding down all the upper strata out of the molten granite, and gives us, instead, the baking of the strata into crystalline rocks; a process exactly the reverse of the former, and of that a.s.serted by the theory of evolution. There is no prospect of any cessation of the war of geological theories.

4. _Zoology._

Equally hostile to each other are the expounders of the development of man from the monkey. As Ishmaelites their hand is against every man.

Each is a law in theorizing unto himself. Their contendings may well teach us caution. Lamarck set those right who preceded him. The author of the _Vestiges of Creation_ outstripped Lamarck, and Mr. Darwin sets both aside; while he in his turn is severely censured by M. Tremaux, and has all his reasoning controverted in favor of the new theory. Lamarck believed in spontaneous generation; Darwin does not. The author of the _Vestiges of Creation_ expounded a law of development, and Mr. Darwin replaces it by Natural Selection. M. Tremaux has repudiated the origin which Mr. Darwin has a.s.sumed, and insists on our believing that, not water, but the _soil_, is the origin of all life, and therefore of man.

With him there is no progress; all creatures have reached their resting place. But man rises or sinks, according to the more ancient or recent soil he dwells upon. Professor Huxley is unwilling to abandon his idea that life may come from dead matter, and is not disposed to accept of Mr. Darwin's explanation of the origin of life by the Creator having, at first, breathed it into one or more forms. While accepting of Mr.

Darwin's theory of a common descent for man with all other creatures, he not only differs from him as to the beginning, but he admits that there is no gradual transition from the one to the other. He acknowledges that the structural differences between man and even the highest apes are great and significant; and yet because there is no sign of gradual transition between the gorilla, and the orang, and the gibbon, he infers that they all had a common origin; whereas the more natural conclusion from the facts would be that they had separate beginnings.

Mr. Wallace, whose claims are admitted to be equal to these of Mr.

Darwin, as the propounder of the theory of the origin of species by Natural Selection, has firmly a.s.serted that, with all its resources, Natural Selection is utterly inadequate to account for the origin and structure of the human race.[379] Thus they go, biting and devouring each other, until at last it becomes a reproduction of the Kilkenny cats, and there is nothing left but the tails. We have only to wait, and the current Infidel theory will certainly be exposed and demolished next year, by the author of some equally impossible theory.

Not merely individual scientists, but the most learned societies have blundered. "Has not the French Academy p.r.o.nounced against the use of quinine and vaccination, against lightning rods and steam engines? Has not Reaumer suppressed Peysonnel's 'Essay on Corals,' because he thought it was madness to maintain their animal nature? Had not his learned brethren decreed, in 1802, that there were no meteors, although a short time later two thousand fell in one department alone; and had they not more recently still received the news of ether being useful as an anaesthetic with sure and unanimous condemnation?"[380]

If s.p.a.ce permitted we could go over the circle of the sciences, and show that a similar state of uncertainty and exposure to error exists in them all. We have, however, confined our attention to those whose certainty is now most loudly vaunted, and whose theories are most largely used as the basis of Infidelity. Nor have we by any means exhausted the list of errors and contradictions of these. A volume as large as this would be required to present the list of several hundred errors, absurdities, contradictions, and mutual refutations of scientists, in the physical sciences, now before me; errors not sought after, but incidentally observed and noted in the spare hours' reading of a busy professional life.

It is worthy of notice, that the uncertainties of science increase just in proportion to our interest in it. It is very uncertain about all my dearest concerns, and very positive about what does not concern me. The greatest certainty is attainable in pure mathematics, which regards only ideal quant.i.ties and figures; but biology--the science of life--is utterly obscure. The astronomer can calculate with considerable accuracy the movements of distant planets, with which we have no intercourse; but where is the meteorologist bold enough to predict the wind and weather of next week, on which my crops, my s.h.i.+ps, my life may depend? Heat, light, and electricity may be pretty accurately measured and registered, but what physician can measure the strength of the malignant virus which is sapping the life of his patient? The chemist can thoroughly a.n.a.lyze any foreign substance, but the disease of his own body which is bringing him to the grave, he can neither weigh, measure nor remove. Science is very positive about distant stars and remote ages, but stammers and hesitates about the very life of its professors.

4. Such, then, are a few of the uncertainties, imperfections, and positive and egregious errors of science at its fountain head. To the actual investigator infallible certainty of any scientific fact is hardly possible, error exceedingly probable, and gross blunders in fact and theory by no means uncommon. But how greatly diluted must the modified and hesitating conviction possible to an actual observer become, when, as is generally the case, a man is not an actual observer himself, but _learns his science at school_. Such a person leaves the ground of demonstrative science, and stands upon faith. The first question then to be proposed to one whose demonstrative certainty of the truths of physical science has disgusted him with a religion received on testimony and faith, is, How have you reached this demonstrative certainty in matters of science? Are you quite sure that your certainty rests not upon the testimony of fallible and erring philosophers, but solely upon your own personal observations and experiments?

To take only the initial standard of astronomical measurements--the earth's distance from the sun. Have you personally measured the earth's radius, observed the transit of Venus in 1769, from Lapland to Tahiti at the same time, calculated the sun's parallax, and the eccentricity of the earth's...o...b..t? Would you profess yourself competent to take even the preliminary observation for fixing the instruments for such a reckoning?

Were you ever within a thousand miles of the proper positions for making such observations? Or have you been necessitated to accept this primary measure, upon the accuracy of which all subsequent astronomical measurers depend, merely upon hearsay and testimony, and subject to all those contingencies of error and prejudice, and mistakes of copyists, which, in your opinion, render the Bible so unreliable in matters of religion?

Or to come down to earth. You are a student of the stone book, with its enduring records graven in the rock forever; and perhaps have satisfied yourself that "under the ponderous strata of geological science the traditionary mythology and cosmogony of the Hebrew poet has found an everlasting tomb." But how many volumes of this stone book have you perused personally? You are quite indignant perhaps that theologians and divines, who have no practical or personal knowledge of geology, should presume to investigate its claims. Have you personally visited the various localities in South America, Siberia, Australia, India, Britain, Italy, and the South Seas, where the various formations are exhibited; and have you personally excavated from their matrices the various fossils which form the hieroglyphics of the science? Have you, in fact, ever seen one in a thousand of these minerals and fossils _in situ_? Or are you dependent on the tales of travelers, the specimens of collectors, the veracity of authors, the accuracy of lecturers, aided by maps of ideal stratifications, in rose-pink, brimstone-yellow, and indigo-blue, for your profound and glowing convictions of the irresistible force of experimental science, and of the shadowy vagueness of a religion dependent upon human testimony?

To come down considerably in our demands, and confine ourselves to the narrow limits of the laboratory. You are a chemist perhaps, and proud, as most chemists justly are, of the accuracy attainable in that most palpable and demonstrative science. But how much of it is experimental science _to you_? How many of the nine hundred and forty-two substances treated of in Turner's Chemistry have you a.n.a.lyzed? One-half? One-tenth?

Would you face the laughter of a college cla.s.s to-morrow upon the experiment of taking nine out of the nine hundred, reducing them to their primitive elements, giving an accurate a.n.a.lysis of their component parts, and combining them in the various forms described in that, or any other book, whose statements, because experimentally certain, have filled you with a dislike of Bible truths, which you must receive upon testimony? In fact, do you know anything worth mention of the facts of science upon your own knowledge, except those of the profession by which you make your living?

Or, after all your boasting about scientific and demonstrative certainty, have you been obliged to receive the certainties of science "upon faith, and at second-hand, and upon the word of another;" and to save your life you could not tell half the time who that other is, by naming the discoverers of half the scientific truths you believe? What!

are you dependent on hearsay, and probability, for any little science you possess, having in fact never obtained any personal demonstration or experience of its first principles and measurements, nor being capable of doing so? Then let us hear no more cant about the uncertainty of a religion dependent upon testimony, and the certainties of experimental science. Whatever certainty may be attainable by scientific men--and we have seen that is not much--it is very certain you have got none of it.

The very best you can have to wrap yourself in is a second-hand a.s.surance, grievously torn by rival schools, and needing to be patched every month by later discoveries. Your science, such as it is, _rests solely upon faith_ in the testimony of philosophers, often contradictory and improbable, and always fallible and uncertain.

5. Nor would you cease to be dependent upon faith could you personally make all the observations and calculations of demonstrative science. The knowledge of these facts does not const.i.tute science; it is merely the brick pile containing the materials for the building of science. Science is knowledge systematized. But if the parts of nature were not arranged after a plan, the knowledge of them could not be formed into a system.

Chaos is unintelligible. Our minds are so const.i.tuted that we look for order and regularity, and can not comprehend confusion. We possess this expectation of order before we begin to learn science, and without it would never begin the search after a system of knowledge. All scientific experiment is but a search after order, and order is only another name for intelligence--for G.o.d. Deprive us of this fundamental faith in cause and effect, order and regularity--of reason, in short--and science becomes as impossible to man as to the orang-outang. _All science, even in its first principles, rests upon faith._

Not only science, reason, also, is founded upon faith; for we can not prove by reason the truths which form the data of reasoning. The intuitions of the mind, which form the postulates necessary to the first process of reasoning, are believed, not proven. When the wise fool attempted to prove his own existence by the celebrated sophism, "I think, therefore I exist," he necessarily postulated his existence in order to prove it. How did he know that there was an "I" to think? And how did he know that the "I" thought? Certainly not by any process of reasoning, but by faith. He believed these truths; but could never reason them into his consciousness. Faith, then, underlies reason itself.

We may now proceed to inquire whether or not faith, which we have found so prevalent even among those who repudiate it, is a thing to be ashamed of; or if it be a sufficiently certain and reliable basis for human life and conduct.

1. We are met at the very outset by the great fact that G.o.d has so const.i.tuted the world and everything in it, that _in all the great concerns of life we are necessitated to depend on faith_; without any possibility of reaching absolute certainty regarding the result of any ordinary duty. We sow without any certainty of a crop, or that we may live to reap it. We harvest, but our barns may be burned down. We sell our property for bank-bills, but who dare say they will ever be paid in specie? We start on a journey to a distant city, but even though you insure your life, who will insure that fire, or flood, or railroad collision may not send you to the land whence there is no return?

Science is the child of yesterday; but from the beginning of the world men have lived by faith. Before science was born, Cain tilled his ground without any mathematical demonstration that he should reap a crop. Abel fed his flock without any scientific certainty that he should live to enjoy its produce; and Tubal Cain forged axes and swords without any a.s.surance that he should not be plundered of his wages. All the experience of mankind proves that experimental certainty regarding the most important business of this life is impossible. By what process of philosophical induction is religion alone put beyond the sphere of faith and hope? If religious duties are not binding on us, unless religion be scientifically demonstrated, then neither are moral obligations; for these two can not be separated. Is it really so, that none but scientific men are bound to tell the truth, and pay their debts; and that a person may not fear G.o.d, and go to heaven, unless he has graduated at college? The common sense of mankind declares that we live by faith, not by science.

2. _We demand the knowledge of truths of which science is profoundly ignorant._ Science is but an outlying nook of my farm, which I may neglect and yet have bread to eat. Faith is my house in which all my dearest interests are treasured. Of all the great problems and precious interests which belong to me as a mortal and an immortal, science knows nothing. I ask her whence I came? and she points to her pinions scorched over the abyss of primeval fire, her eyes blinded by its awful glare, and remains silent. I inquire what I am? but the strange and questioning _I_ is a mystery which she can neither a.n.a.lyze nor measure. I tell her of the voice of conscience within me--she never heard it, and does not pretend to understand its oracles. I tell her of my anxieties about the future--she is learned only in the past. I inquire how I may be happy hereafter--but happiness is not a scientific term, and she can not tell me how to be happy here! Poor, blind science!

3. _All our dearest interests lie beyond the domains of science, in the regions of faith._ Science treats of things--faith is confidence in persons. Take away the persons, and of what value are the things? The world becomes at once a vast desert, a dreary solitude, and more miserable than any of its former inhabitants the lonely wretch who is left to mourn over the graves of all his former companions--the last man. Solitary science were awful. Could I prosecute the toils of study alone, without companion or friend to share my labors? Would I study eternally with no object, and for no use; none to be benefited, none to be gratified by my discoveries? Though you hung maps on every tree, made every mountain range a museum, bored mines in every valley, and covered every plain with specimens, made Vesuvius my crucible, and opened the foundations of the earth to my view--yet would the discovery of a single fresh human footprint in the sand fill my heart with more true hope of happiness, than an endless eternity of solitary science. I can live, and love, and be happy without science, _but not without companions.h.i.+p, whose bond is faith_.

Faith is the condition of all the happiness you can know on earth. Law, order, government, civilization, and family life, depend not upon science, but upon confidence in moral character--upon faith. In its suns.h.i.+ne alone can happiness grow. It is faith sends you out in the morning to your work, nerves your arms through the toils of the day, brings you home in the evening, gathers your wife and your children around your table, inspires the oft-repeated efforts of the little prattler to ascend your knee, clasps his chubby arms around your neck, looks with most confiding innocence in your eye, and puts forth his little hand to catch your bread, and share your cup. Undoubting faith is happiness even here below. Need you marvel, then, that you must be converted from your pride of empty, barren science, and casting yourself with all your powers into the arms of faith, become as a little child before you can enter into the kingdom of heaven?

4. But religion is not founded upon faith as distinct from observation and experiment. _It is the most experimental of all the sciences._ There is less of theory, and more of experience in it than in any other science. Its faith is all practical. It is a great mistake to suppose that faith is the opposite pole of experience. On the contrary, experience is the fruit which ripens from the blossom of faith. We have seen how an underlying conviction of the existence of an intelligent planner and upholder of the laws of nature is the source of all scientific experiment, and systematized knowledge. A similar underlying conviction of the existence of a moral governor of the world is the source of all religious experience. _He that cometh to G.o.d must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of those that diligently seek him._ But this fundamental axiom believed, long trains of experience follow; of every one of which you can be, and actually are, infinitely more certain than of any fact of physical science. Your eyes, your ears, your touch, your instruments, your reason, may be deceived; but your consciousness can not. If your soul is filled with joy, that is a _fact_. You know it, and are as sure of it as you are that the sun s.h.i.+nes. If you feel miserable, you are so. A sense of neglected duty, a consciousness that you have done wrong, and are displeased with yourself for it; a certainty that G.o.d is displeased with you for wrong-doing, and that he will show his displeasure by suitable punishment; the tenacious grasp of vicious habits on your body and soul, and the fearful thought that by the law of your nature these vipers, which you vainly struggle to shake off, will forever keep involving you more closely in their cursed coils--these are _facts of your experience_. You are as certain that they give you disquiet of mind, when you entertain them, as that the sea rages in a tempest; and that you can no more prevent their entrance, nor compel their departure, nor calm nor drown the anxiety they occasion, than you can prevent the rising of the tempest, dismiss the thunder-storm, or drown Etna in your wine-gla.s.s. Of these primary facts of moral science, and of others like them, you possess the most absolute and infallible certainty from your own consciousness. They result from the inertia of moral matter, which, when put into a state of disturbance, has no power of bringing itself to rest; as expressed in the formula, _There is no peace, saith my G.o.d, to the wicked._[381]

Let us now go out of your own experience, as you must do in every other science, into the region of observation, and study a few of the other phenomena of religion. Your comrade, Jones, has taken to drinking of late, and also to going with you to Sunday lectures, and in the evening to other places of amus.e.m.e.nt. He has, however, been warned that the next time he comes drunk to the workshop he will be discharged; and as he is a clever young fellow, and knows more about the Bible than you, having gone to Sabbath-school when a boy, and is able to use up the saints cleverly, you would be sorry to lose his company. So you set on him to go with you to hear a temperance lecture, hoping that he may be induced to take the pledge; for if he does not you fear he will soon lie in the gutter. He curses you, and himself too, if ever he listens to any such stuff; and refuses to go. You can easily gather a hundred other ill.u.s.trations of the great law of the moral repulsion between vice and truth, expressed in the following formula: "_This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved._"[382] Your life, however, is but a long ill.u.s.tration of this principle. Have you not willingly remained in ignorance of the contents of the Bible, because you dislike its commands?

There is another fact of the same science--there, in the gutter before you, wallowing in his own vomit, covered with rags, besmeared with mud, smelling worse than a hog, his bruised and bleeding mouth unable to articulate the obscenities and curses he tries to utter. "Is it possible that can be Bill Brown! Why, only three years ago we worked at the same bench. It was he who introduced me to the Sunday Inst.i.tute; as clever a workman and as jovial a comrade as I ever knew, but would get on a spree now and again. He had a good father and mother, got considerable schooling, had good wages, got married to a clever girl, and had two fine children. Is it possible he could make such a beast of himself in such a short time?" Yes, quite possible, and more, quite certain. Not only in his case, but in all others, the law of moral gravitation is universal and infallible. "_Evil men and seducers wax worse and worse._"[383] The degradation may not always be in this precise form, nor always as speedy; as all heavy bodies do not fall to the same place, nor with like rapidity. But it is always as certain and always as deep, and will one day be far more public. Fix it firmly in your mind. It concerns you more than all the science you will ever know. You, too, are in the course of sin, and you know it. You have already begun to fall.

Come again into this room. "What, into a prayer-meeting? I don't go to such places." But, if you want to study the phenomena of religion scientifically, you should go to such places; just as if you want to study geology, you should go to the places where the strata are exposed to view. I do not ask you to speak, and to ask people to pray for you, but only to look on and listen. If you are a philosopher I wish you to cease dogmatizing about fanaticism, and enthusiasm, and the ignorance, and credulity of believers, at least until you philosophically examine the evidence upon which they believe. You can set aside, if you please, their unfounded beliefs concerning matters beyond their capacity, and also their confident hopes for futurity. What I wish you to examine is their _actual experience of religion_, as they severally relate it. For as we have seen, the facts of consciousness are just as certain, and as ascertainable, as the facts discovered by our senses; and there is no reason in the world why we should not pursue the study of religion in the same way that we gain a knowledge of science; namely, by collecting and studying the facts acc.u.mulated by those who have made experiments, and have obtained a practical knowledge of the matter.

There are here, as you see, a great number of religious experimenters.

They are also of very various conditions of life, and of various degrees of education. Many of them are moreover well known to you, so that you are in a favorable position for forming a fair judgment of their discoveries. There is your comrade Smith, Hopkins who does the hauling for your establishment, Lawyer Hammond, Professor Edwards, whose chemical lectures you attend, Dr. Lawrence, who lectured before the Lyceum last winter, Mr. Heidenberger, who wrote a series of articles on Comte's Positive Philosophy for the Investigator, Mrs. Bridgman, your Aunt Polly, who nursed you during your typhoid fever, and a great many others whom you know quite well. Professor Edwards leads in prayer, and gives a brief address. You never dreamt that he was hoaxing you when he told you of his chemical experience; have you any reason to offer for believing that he now solemnly, and in the presence of G.o.d, lies to you and to this a.s.sembly, when he tells you of the peace he has found in believing in Christ, and the happiness he experiences in uniting with his brethren in the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d? Or is he more liable to error in noting the fact of his mental joy or sorrow, than in observing the effect of the extraordinary ray in double refraction? If not, the fact that he has felt this religious experience, is just as certain as the fact, that he has seen polarized light.

There is your comrade Smith, whom you have known for years, actually got up to speak in meeting. You are surprised; but listen: "Neighbors and friends, most of you know I never cared much about religion, and was often given to take more liquor than was good for me, and then I would fight and curse awful bad. I knew as well as anybody that it wasn't right, and always felt bad after a spree, and many a time I said I would turn over a new leaf, and be good. But it was all no use, for as soon as any of the fellows would come around after me, I always went along with them, till at last I gave it up and said it was no use to try. Still, whenever any of my acquaintances died, I felt scared like; and I kept away as far as I could from churches and preachers and such like, because I could not bear to think about G.o.d and judgment to come. Well, about five weeks ago my little Minnie set on me one Sabbath morning to carry her to church, and to please the little creature--for she is as pert a darling as you could see anywhere--I told my wife to get her ready, and we would go. She seemed as if she would cry, and kept talking to herself all the way. When we got into the church the singing almost upset me, for I had not been to a church since I was a little fellow, just before father and mother died. But it seemed as if it was the same tune, and as if the tune brought them all back, and as if I saw them again and all the family, and heard mother sing as she used to, and I forgot church and everything, and thought I was a little fellow playing about on the floor just as I used to do when I was a happy child. When they stopped I was so sorry, and wished I could just be as innocent and as happy as I was then. Well, it seemed like the preacher had been reading my thoughts, for he gave out for his text, '_Verily, verily, I say unto you, unless a man be born again he can not see the kingdom of G.o.d._' He began to preach how Jesus can give us new hearts, and save us from our sins; that his blood cleanses from all sin; that he is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto G.o.d through him. The tears came into my eyes, and I could hardly keep my mouth shut till I got out.

When I got home I knelt down, and cried to Jesus to save me from my sins; and my wife prayed too, and we cried for mercy. The Lord heard us, and I felt light and happy, and I went to church again, and sung with the rest. And the best of it is, the Lord delivered me from the drink; as I told a man who asked where I was going to-day, and I told him I was going to prayer-meeting, for I had got religion now. He said there were a great many religions, and most of them wrong, and a great many people said all religion was only a notion, and preaching only nonsense. I says to him, 'Look here, stranger, do you see that tavern there?' 'Yes,' says he. 'Well,' says I, 'do you see me?' 'I do, of course,' says he. 'Well,'

says I, 'every little fellow in these parts knows that so long as Tom Smith had a quarter in his pocket he could never pa.s.s that tavern without having a drink. All the men in Jefferson could not stop him. Now look here,' says I, 'there is my week's wages, and I can go past, and thank G.o.d I don't feel the least like drinking, for the Lord Jesus has saved me from it. If you call that a notion, it is a mighty powerful notion, and it is a notion that has put clothes on my children's backs, and plenty of good food on my table, and songs of praise to the Lord in my mouth. _That's a fact, stranger._ Glory be to G.o.d for it. And I would recommend you to come to prayer-meeting with me, and maybe you would get religion too. A great many people are getting religion now.'"

His last remark is certainly very true. There are so many, and of such various characters and grades of life, and in so many places, that every reader can easily find several Tom Smiths of his own acquaintance, whose conversions display all the essential facts of this case, and prove that:

5. The facts of religious experience _are better attested, and more un.o.bjectionable_ than those of any other science.

Unless they can be shown to be unreasonable or impossible, we are bound to receive them, when presented by the experimentists who have discovered them, though personally we may not have any such experience; just as we believe the chemists, or the astronomers who relate their discoveries which personally we have not observed. But the facts of religion are _by no means unreasonable_. They can not be shown to contradict any known law of the human mind. It is true they are mysterious. But so are the facts of physical science--heat, light, electricity, gravitation. Of either, we may be quite certain that such phenomena exist, and utterly ignorant of the mode of their operation. It were as utterly unphilosophical to deny that Almighty G.o.d could impart nervous energy to the languid limbs of your sick neighbor, because you are ignorant of its origin and means of transmission, as to deny that G.o.d could impart spiritual electricity to his paralyzed soul, because you are ignorant of the mode in which he bestows it. And ignorance is all that you can plead in this case. You must just admit that having tried an experiment which you have not, your religious friend has a right to know more than you.

Moreover, the facts of religion are presented for belief upon _the most abundant and reliable testimony_. In physical science you must rely on the testimony of a very few observers--the great bulk even of scientific men having no opportunity of testing the facts themselves, and being well satisfied if any fact is confirmed by the testimony of two or three philosophers--and this testimony often contradictory, and always fallible, as the discordant results of their experiments prove. But here you have a great mult.i.tude of experimentists, in every city and village of the land, of every variety of intellect and education, prosecuting the same course of experiments, and all arriving at the same results.

They do not all confess the _same_ sins, but they all felt the power of _some_ sin, and felt miserable in their guilt. And however they may differ in their external circ.u.mstances, their inward const.i.tution, or in their views of the outward part of religion, there is no difference among them about the great facts of their religious experience. They all believed the faithful saying that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, cried to G.o.d for mercy through him, and received peace of mind, grace to live a new life, and to delight in the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d. Do you know any science which has been prosecuted by one-hundredth part of this number of inquirers? Which has been confirmed by one-thousandth part of this number of experimenters? Or any experiment tried with such uniform and unfailing success as this, "_Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved?_"[384] Why then do you hesitate to admit the correctness of these facts? Is it because you perceive they lead to results which you dislike?