The Indiana State sentinel., 1880-05-12

cd and profound excursions in to the ma
terial laboratories and laws; and this excur-
sion has brought back no explanation what
ever of the instinct of a bird to 60 South or
of a spider to spin web or of a beaver to
fell tree. Our scientific men, industrious
and learned as they are, can not pass over
the wide gulf that lies between a lump of
clay and the orioles nest or lump of clay
and bird song. In our walks about our
world we are met by the feeling that mind
has been here and there; and, as we per-
ceive that it was not mans mind, we must
assume that a greater than man exists. The
argument being now spread over several
thousand years, and having assumed all pos
sible forms, we seem competent at last to
select from the mass the most impressive tes-
timony. and that seems to be the fact that
there is in our universe an intellectual ac-
ton. which in an infinite bulk somewhere we
NAV as well call ''God." Pantheism is the
assumption that each bird and fish and man
is a part of this mind, just as each ray o.
light in cell or each rill of water is part
of the common light or sea. Deism Is. the
assumption that God is one great mi'.ld and
tha: all other life were made by hIm as a
workman makes watch. Atheism is
a denial of both these and the assump-
IlOn luSJ the QuSI Is li6 pdTenL Oh DlrQ
and fish and man. OF these theories De-
ism is the most rational. Panthesm Of
fers no valid reason why an insect
should be part of the Deity. Pantheism
stands upon apardonable and even thought
full basis, compared with Atheism, but as
compared with Deism, its claims to our faith
seem inferior. Our world is so given to in
dividualize its life that we seem bound to in
dividualize the Supreme Power and discard
Pantheism. The consciousness of Lord Ba-
con was quite distinct from that of Newton
or Socrates. You can not recall my dreams,
nor can / know your thoughts. Much less
is man identified with his dog or his horse
All is separate In our earth. 1t has no pam
humanism, no pan-aAimalism, and hence
we must deny it a pan-theism, and must
imagine cur Creator to have a personality
as distinct from you and me as we are dis
tinct from each other. In universe of in
dividuals
GOD Is SIMPLY THE GREATEST.
Atheism is the most uninviting of the three
theories. 1t can not lead us across from mat
ter to mind, and therefore it is compelled to
deny the existence of mind and affirm that
it is only an accident of matter, and that a
bird that can fly in the air is only as
the dust that can fly in the air, and that be-
tween swimming chips and swimming fish
there is no essential difference. Atheism is
placed in the absurd attitude of confessing
life of many grades and then of denying a
still higher grade called Divine. 1t sees
in this earth million species, from butter
fly up to a saint, and then says there may not
be one more form of life called Deity. of
the three forms of belief or surmise it is the
weakest in logical quality in moral quality
it is of still humber pretensions, for it is
quite empty of motive and hope.
Deism raises up the greatest of the group,
and having ruled the world thus far, it will
doubtless be the dominant opinion ofhuman-
ity as long as the race shall endure. 1t is
simple, it is natural. Finding mind in the
wild-mind- d-busy building, painting, carving,
writing, speaking, planting, sowing, reaping
it gives up the discussion whether there can
be such thing as an intelligence
sees it on all hands, and then has no task
left it but ID assume that there is an intelli-
gence still higher than man. As the come
of the sky is greater than the dome Of ST.
Peter, it infers that nature has an architect
gruater than Angelo. In Deism God is the
mind and power of man carried onward to
the Supreme. Under this idea of God all the
specifications of life fall and find full expla-
nublOui anu ~ cCClllS blC OulN occuupbAOu
that will explain the physical phenomena of
the universe. 1t is asking too much of in
animate material to make system of worlds
such that one star shall send light and heat
upon an earth and make its soil send forth
violets, and grasses and trees, and
shall make four seasons and finally make
animals and then man, shall induce another
planet to reflect at night upon this
same earth it is asking too much
of material things to have them arranging
the deposit of dew at night and the showers
of rain and the ripening influences of the
autumn months; it is asking too much of
dust and ashes to expect them to make beau
tiful birds to fly in the air, and beautiful gold
and silver fish to live in the crystal brooks;
too much to expect the power of dust to
originate the idea of purple grapes and the
blushing peach. We know that the material
forces can help along all these shapes of the
wonderful, but if materialism, the death of
nature, can do such wonderful works man
should lament that he has mind, for he has
been wholly surpassed by clay that had in
THE OUTSET NEITHER LIFE NOR MIND.
If our world did not begin in personal in
telligence, but began with material forms of
low quality. man should be disappointed in
his spiritual nature, and might well wish
himself clod that he might thus have the
hope of starting a universe. Our world was
fashioned either by something above man or
something beneath him. If by something
beneath man we might all we'll deserve to
go back to that miserable weakness and ig-
norance that could arrange the four seasons
and make clay turn into birds and violets
What is human progress but a perpetual
going away from the primitive potencies
that made worlds? But if the universe
was made by some One above man
then progress is a march toward Him; not
moving away from the creative power, but
toward it, and each year that bears us on
ward in mental growth is year OF joy.
This materialism places all greatness back of
man; Deism places it before him. With all
his pride Of soul and intellect, man is sur
passed by the slime of the sea if there be no
God, for that slime made the life of earth.
The general statement that it is asking too
much of the air, earth, fire, and water, that
they should make the amazing things that
surround us needs to be enforced by glance
at particulars Look at mind in its minute
embodiment Man who speaks and sings and