Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-12-09
SUNDAY READING.

we call attention to some OF his sayings. In
q sermon upon "organic instincts in con
science VIC find him expressing himself in the
following manncr-nore brilliant, it seems to
usthan coherent orlogical Addressing himself
to the distinction between instinct and reason,
he says "There arc organic and instructive
activities o.: conscience by which we forbode
punishment or antici pate reward Who denies
this2 Not Nero when he stabs himself, or
causes his servants to hold the sword on which
he falls. Not Nero when he hears groans from
the grave of his mother whom he murdered
the other day, at Baiae Tacitus says, as l
recolect at this moment, that Nero, after he
murdered Agrippina, heard the sound of a
trumpet and groans from her grave. he had
had no Christian education. He had not been
brought up wrongly, and probably did not feel
as Hume did that it was necessary to explain
his qualms OF conscience by shock he re-
ceived in his youth Nero had an education
drawn out of the black sky and the blood
soaked sods of old Rome; and yet he anticipa-
ted the action of the Furies behind the veil.
Who will stand here and affirm that these in
selves in what all religions have taught as to
the Furies and Nemesis and the Avenging
Fates, and as to what awaits us in time to
come beyond death, arc not expressions of an
organic and ineradicable instinct in man. If
God makes an instinct, there is always some
thing to match it. The instinct of the migrat-
ing bird finds South to match it, an ear
sound to match it, . fin water to match it.
We walk directly out upon this universal or
ganic possession of man and infer the eXis-
tence of the other side of it. The poor bee
throws out its antennae and touches things
near it, and conscience throws out her anten-
nae and touches things behind the veil. Con
science makes towards of us all, not on &C
count of anything this side the veil, but of
something on the other side. But when con-
science makes towards of us all, is it merely
of some arrangement Of the molecular atoms
in the universe, merely of some SILVER of the
ultimate particles of this inert stuff that we
call matter, merely of somewhat, or is it of
a someone that conscience makes us afraid T!
l have yet to find materalstic philosopher |
ganic instinct is human This is the way con-
science is made and I undertake to say that |
it is not bunglngly and mendaciously made.
Still upon the same subject, and also still pur-
suing the view and strain of man whose tone
seems to mean 81, at least, am competent to
treat of science, with the scientists; for am |
not scholarl and doth not my theology keep
pace with my enlightenment" There seems,
indeed, under his audacity of tone and clever
ness of rhetoric this sort of a self satisfied
swagger. But it is good reading, none the
less-as for example: "Let your thoughts run
through the vistas of historical precedents Call
up Socrates with his protesting genius, which
always told him what not to do. Call up every
great poet that has addressed t re MUSES. call
up every orator that has invoked the aid of
the gods remember Demosthenes there on
the Bema, looking abroad on the matchless
landscape, the temples, the tombs of the men
who fell at Salamis, and yet invoking, above
them all, the immortal gods Remember that
no public state assembly was opened at Athens ;
in her best days unless preceded by prayer {
- III IPPAiio NIOuA "OdIu oIopSISC all dCuASACc
in the Pnyx, and that because men thought i
that this portent indicated that the gods were {
against their assembling. Votivc tablets to {
Jupiter clothed the naked rocks at the sides
of the Bema. Even your Napoleon believes G
in a protecting genius. Lowell pictures the
first man in his naturalness as God conquered G
with his face to heaven upturned. In our g
highest moments VIC instinctively speak of
and not merely of q somewhat.
Richter says that when child first witnesses e
! thunder storm, when the greatest objects of t
nature, such as the Alps, the Himalayas or the o
ocean, come before the mind for the first time, q
hen is the moment in which to speak of God; y
or the sublime everywhere awakens the e
thought, not only of a somewhat but of P
someone behind it. Not somewhat merely, "
out a someone walks on Niagaras watery rim. u
The further IN you ascend the Alps, if your u
thoughts are awake, the moro near you come W
o anticipated communion, not only with g
omewhat, but with someone higher than the P
Alps, or than the visible heavens that are to OF
,e rolled away. There arc in the midnights U
n the ocean voices that the waves do not ut Sc
er. [ have paced to and fro on the deck of IN
teamer midway between England and Amer OF