Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1850-04-05


officers, babe them acknowledge the hum
BILE Katharine as the future Empress of
Russia.
LAMARTINE ON ATHEISM.
Il little pamphlet under this title, trans
lated from the French of Lamartine, has
been published by Messrs. Philips, Samp-
son & Co. 1t is well worthy wide cir
culation, Lamartine discaims the charge
frequently brought against him of holding
to the dim doctrines of the Pantheists.
"Pantheism, he says, (which have al
ways scorned as contradiction and as a
blasphemy, resembles entirely the reason
ing of the man who would say, Il see an
innumcrable number of rays, therefore
there is no sum-" A very happy illustra-
ton that
Promising that his belief in God is not
that vague, confused, indefinite, shadowy
sentiment, which compels one to see a
cause, because there are certain effec9s--
can evidence not reasonable, not religious,
not perfect, not meritorious, but like the
material evidence of light which enters
our eyes when we open them TO the day"
-he admits that, although faith in its
rudiments, may proceed from the first in
stinct, yet, in proportion as intelligence
dcvelopes itself, it goes from knowledge
to knowledge, from conclusion to conclu-
sion, from light TO light, from sentiment
to sentiment, infinitely farther and higher
in the idea of God; cit does not see him
with the eyes of the body, because the
Infinite is not visible by narrow window
Of flesh, pierced in the frontal bone of an
insect called man, but it sees Him with a
thousand times more certainty, by the
spirit, that immaterial eye of the soul,
which nothing blinds"
But God is not mere idea, notion,
an evidence. He is law-the living.
the supreme, the universal, the eternal
law. because God is a law on high, he
is q duty on the earth, and when man
says, "I believe in God" he says, at the
same time, "I believe in my duty towards
man." God is governments From this
Lamartine proceeds to specify the duties
resulting from this belief, one of which
duties is that towards society. He then
analyses the social system, and arrives at
the broad conclusion that "Tc love the
people it is necessary to believe in God. +"
Wherefore, atheism in the people IS the
most invincible obstacle to the establish
ment and consolidation of that sublime
fo"m of government the idol of all ages,
the tendency Of Of all perfect civilization,
the dream ofevery sage, the model of all
great souls--the government Of the entire
people by the reason and conscience of
each citizeu-otherwise called the repub-
| lic."
A nation, he contends, where each citi-
zen thinks only of his own private we'll
being here below, and sacrifices constant
ly the general good to his personal and
narrow interest-a people having no God
but its selfshness, no Judge but interest,
no conscience but cupidity, will fall, in a
short time, into complete destruction, and
be incapable of a republican government,
because it casts aside the government of
God himself, will rush headlong into the
government of the brute, the government
of the strongest, the despotism of the
sword, the divinity of the cannon--the
last resort of anarchy, which is at once
the remedy and the death Of nations
without God"
"But that people which forgets God
forgets itself. What right has It to be
people il it have not its origin and hope in
Him? How can the men of any nation ex-
pect tyrants to remember and respect its
destiny, If they themselves debase this
destiny to that OF a machine with ten I'm
gers. destined to weave the greatest pos
sble nunber of yards of cloth in seventy
years, TO people as many hundred acres
as possible with creatures rs mueh TO be
pitied and as miserable as themselves, and
to serve, from generation, to generation,
as human manure for the land, to ferti-
lise the sosl Of their birth, their life, aad