True American. [volume] (Steubenville [Ohio]) 1855-1861, 1858-04-21
Hume and Edward Everett.

Hume and Edward Everett.
FIN an address before the New York State Ag.
ricultural Society, Hon. Edward Everett
thus noticed the exploded argument of Hume
against miracles.
"A celebrated skeptical philosopher of
the last century--the historian Hume
thought to demolish the credulity of the
Christian revelation by the concise argu-
ment--
ut is contrary to experience that miracle
should be true, but not contrary to experienc e
that testimony should be false,
"The last part of the proposition, es-
pecially in free country on the eve of a
popular election, is, unhappily. too well
founded; but in what book worms dusty
cell, tapee'ried with cobwebs of age,
where the light Of real life and nature
never forced its way-in what pedant's
school, where deaf ears listen to bumb
lips, and blind followers are led by blind
guides, did he learn that it is contrary to
experience that a miricle should be true
Most certainly he never learned il from
sower or reaper, from animal or Rational
man connected with husbandry. Poor
Red Jacket, off here on Buffalo creek, if
he could have comprehended the terms Of
the proposition, would have treated it with
scorn. CONTRARY to experience that phe-
nomena should exist which we cannot
trace to causes perceptible to the human
sense. or conceivble Ivy human thought
It would be much nearer the truth TO say
that within the husbandman's experience
there are no phenomena which can be
ralionally traced to anything but the in.
stant energy of creative power.
"Did this philosopher ever contemplate
the landscape at the close of the year,
when seeds. and grains and fruits have
ripened, and stalks have withered and
leaves have fallen, and winter has forced
her icy curb even into the roaring jaws
Of Niagura, and sheeted half a continent
in her glitlering shroud, and all this teem-
ing vegetation and organized life are
locked in cold and marble obstruction /;
and after week upon week and month
upon month have swept, with slee. and
chilly rain and bowling storm, over the
earth, and riveted their crystal bolts upon
the door Of natures sepulchre; when the
sun at length begins to wheel in higher
circles through the sky, and softer winds
TO breathe over melting SHOWS, did he
ever behold the loDg-hidden earth at length
appear, and soon the timid grass peep
forth, and anon the autUmnal wheat begin
TO paint the field, and velvet leaflets to
burst from purple buds, throughout the
reviving forests; and then the mellow
soil to open its fruitful bosom to every
grain and seed dropped from the planters
hand buried but to spring up again. clo'
thed with new mysterious being; anC
then, as more lervid suns infame the air
and softer showers distIl from the clouds
and gentler dews string their pearls OF
twig and tendril, did he ever watch tht
ripening grain and fruit, pendent from
stalk and vine and tree; the meadow, th'
field, the pasture, the grove, each af!e
its kind arrayed in myriad-tinted gar
ments, instinct with circulating life /; sever
millions Of counted leaves on single tree
each Of which is system whose exquisit
complication puts to shame the shrewdes
cunning of the human mind; every plan
ted seed and grain which had been loane'
to the earth, compounding its pious usur.
thirty, sixty, a hundred fold, all harmo
niously adapted TO the sustenance Of iV
ing nature-the bread of hungry world
here Tiled corn6eld, whose yellow bla
des are nodding with the food of man
there an implanted wilderness-the gres
Fathers fsrm--where he who hears tn
ravens cry has cultivated with his owl
band his merciluI crop of berries and nut