66 INCREDIBLE. "Quickening slowly into lower forms.'" 99 Can that be a true philosophy which pauperizes existence, and that converts the fair earth into a potter's field, where beggars may find a refuge with worms, and hide their tattered wretchedness in the cold, narrow bed of annihilation? True? When hell is true, when devils are not false, and when wrong and error are not deceitful, it may be true. But not till then. Not till things most certain become uncertain, the harmonies of the universe be out of tune, and the foundations of eternal verities be shaken, can such a monstrous, rapacious theory be probable to reason or possible to faith. Unhappy the soul who has been deceived by it, who has surrendered his sense of immortality to its block and ax, and who stumbles along over the ruins of once-cherished hopes and beliefs toward extinction. For him no sweet voices sing welcome in the far Beyond; for him no land of beauty unseen by mortal eye unfolds its loveliness; for him no Savior stands with extended arms inviting to the mansions blessed, and for him no endless vistas of unsurpassed and unsurpassable glory open as the scenes of time recede. No; all is dark, cold, forbidding. Every sunrise only hastens impending doom, every grave but tells of sad, irreparable decay, and every sunset is to him only the gorgeous, flaunting herald of annihilation. Annihilation is the burden of every murmuring wind; it is articulated in the rustle of autumnal leaves; it is roared in the thunder clap, and seared into his soul by the lightning's shaft that splinters to naught the giant of the woods. This is to him the one sad message of creation; and all the voices within him and without sent by the Almighty to assure him of everlasting life have turned false prophets to his heart, and mutter death, only death, nothing but death. While we deplore these insatiate ravages, we rejoice that the power of Materialism is less than its malignancy. It may destroy our ideals, it may crush our hopes, it may debase our life, it may lead us to doubt the being of God and the eternity of man, but it can go no farther. It may triumph over our faith in the realities against which it strives; but it never can prevail against the realities themselves. It cannot empty the universe of God, cannot strike Him from His throne, or wrest the scepter from His hand. In this we will rejoice and be glad; yea, and we will shout for joy, because it is equally impotent in its war against humanity. It cannot dispossess the soul of immortality, cannot rob it of that endless life which is its glory, nor drown it in the seas of drear oblivion, nor doom it to the "Realm of Nothingness": "The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years; Unhurt amidst the war of elements, The wreck of matter and the crash of worlds." Of this we are assured, and in this confidence will we rejoice; and while we struggle with the thickening fogs of cold Materialism this hope shall sustain us, that the sun of truth, which for the moment it obscures but cannot extinguish, shall once more and forever stream through the misty veil, and with the night-scattering wings of light chase away the sorrows and the shadows which have settled on too many souls, and enshrouded them in gloom too long NATURALISM Upholding all things by the word of His power." Hebrews i, 3. ARI "There is a power Unseen that rules the illimitable world, That guides its motions, from the brightest star To the least dust of this sin-tainted mold; While man, who madly deems himself the lord Of all, is naught but weakness and dependence." Thomson. RISTOTLE thought that Anaxagoras talked like a sober man, because he rejected the transcendentalism of the Greek Pantheists, and advocated a system which recognized the reality of the visible universe, and attributed the existence and variety of material forms to the creative mind of God. Socrates, also, for the same reason, was at first disposed to admire the philosopher of Clazomena. "Having one day," he says, "read a book of Anaxagoras, who said the Divine mind was the cause of all things, and drew them up in their proper ranks and classes, I was ravished with joy. I perceived that there was nothing more certain than this principle." But more intimate acquaintance with his writings did not confirm this good opinion. Socrates soon discovered that Anaxagoras failed to inculcate sound views regarding a superintending and sustaining Providence, and criticised him accordingly in these terms: "He makes no further use of this mind, but assigns as the cause of the order and beauty that prevails in the world, the air, water, whirlwind, and other agencies of nature." It seems that this father of anti-transcendental theologies, while ascribing the origin of all things to God, did not teach that He upholds them, governs or interferes with them in any way, except, at times, to correct their derangements or to avert their destruction. His was the machine theory of the Cosmos, which represents the Almighty as imparting to the works of His hands certain forces, and subordinating them to specific laws, and then as withdrawing from them to some remote retreat in infinite solitude, from whence to contemplate with serene satisfaction, or serener indifference, their self-supporting and ceaseless operations. Such a philosophy, in which the Creator is comparable (to employ a Carlylian similitude) to a "clockmaker that once, in old immemorial ages, having made his Horologe of a Universe, sits ever since and sees it go," was not to the liking of Socrates. In his judgment it was radically defective, insufficient and inconclusive, stopping far short of the truth, and subversive of its fundamental postulate. The theory of an involved, boundlessly complex, and automatic system of worlds, rejected by the Athenian sage, has been revived in our day, and has grown, and is growing, in tumultuous popularity. While Naturalism in its extreme form is atheistic, as in the remarkable treatise of Baron D'Holbach, in its more moderate, if not more consistent shape, it concedes the Divine existence. It assumes that God is, and that He is necessary to account for the beginning of things; but it discredits the belief that He is indispensable to their maintenance, takes any direct interest in the affairs of His creatures, and either can or will interfere on their behalf. Naturalism, considered as a theistic scheme, dispenses with the Almighty after He has made the universe, and assumes that, being completely made, it is abundantly able to take care of itself. Its favorite illustration, probably derived from Anaxagoras, by which it seeks to make plain to the simplest understanding the character of its teachings, is WHAT IS NATURALISM? 103 founded on the structure and action of complicated machinery. An engine, for instance, is fashioned by human intelligence and skill, arranged in harmony with particular principles, constructed to accomplish a specific end, capable of generating steam, its motive force, and supplied with adequate fuel. Then, by the same intelligence, it is started on its journey, and afterward it runs along the rails independent of its contriver, propelled by its own inherent energies and in obedience to its own fundamental laws. The engineer may be drunk, asleep, or dead; the locomotive will, all the same, pursue its journey as far as the route extends, and as long as the steam endures. This, it is claimed, is a fair description of God's relation to the universe. He called matter into being, endowed it with various properties and with all-sufficing potencies, molded, distributed and organized it according to a predetermined plan; and then, having shaped his suns and stars, and fixed the boundaries of their orbits, having rounded the earth, and furnished it with animals, plants and human puppets, and having provided for every possible contingency; that is, having finished his enormous, complicated machine, with its jagged wheels and ponderous hammers, He removed His hand, gave the word of command, and the whole began to move, and has been moving ever since. If this analogy is justifiable, then from the creative hour "not wanted" might have been written on the throne of God. For if He has from the beginning stored up in nature all the forces requisite for its operations, neither His sleep nor death would have hindered or varied them in the least, or have made any perceptible or practicable difference. And if the theory which is thus illustrated is correct, and the Creator has withdrawn from His works, having committed them to the vicegerency of all-potent second causes, then prayer, of course, is useless, providen |