The Indiana State sentinel., 1880-05-12
PASTORAL TALKS.
Dsism and Atheism.
An Able Sermon Preached Recently Dy
Professor Swing, of Chicago.

lief and distrust. Our period is, perhaps,
making more inquiry than any other period
over the radical question of the existence OF
a God. 1t is not satisfied by the intellectual
exercise afforded by the discussion Of mere
superficial problems, such as whether there is
Trinity or an inspired volume or divinity
founded church-a form Of surmise, where
two sides quite meet the demand of old
doubters and disputants. As man has become
of late years bolder and more intense, and,
perhaps more coldly logical, he raises deeper
question. whether there is Creator, per-
sonal God2" There are not many atheists,
for it is not the principle of the mind to at
firm boldly that there is no such, First Causei
but there is a large number OF men, young
and old, and women, too who are learning
To speak without confidence and with reluct-
auce regarding that Beng wnom the soul
see clearly as the Heavenly Father: It's,
perhaps. impossible to be fully an
atheist. A mind may be an Abol-
zionist or Republican an aristccrat, or
tariff advocate, or settled be-
lever in free trade, but it can net so easily
become settled down in atheism, simply
because the evidence that there is no God
can not by any possibility be gathered up
and weighed. If there be any defect in the
evidence then there must be to that degree
a wavering in the judgment. Nationally,
atheism is impossible but practically rs a
dominant thought casting its influence, its
shadow over the life and thoughts and feel
ings atheism is onlytoo posslbleln our num-
bic earth.
The pulpit has no special magic or mar
velous charm by which it can compel man.
kind to believe in Creator. Man can not
create arguments; he must simply collect
them. Hence all the pulpits on earth, pagan
and Christian, can not fabricate an argument
that will compel humanity to say, "Yes, there
is God, ;" for the argument is furnished by
nature in its fulness or defects, and all the
logicians in the world can not add to what
nature has said. nor can they erase any part
of her infexible speech. Ifit be humiliating
TO think that all the ministers of religion
can not add anything TO the natural proofs
of Deity, it is cheering to feel that all
the atheists who now speak or who may yet
speak will never be able to take anything
away. At the close of all their eloquence
we shall always be able to say, at is quite
probable there is a God" Upon the side of
vice there may come disbelief in a Creator,
but upon the side of reason such assurance
can never come for the final demonstration
of atheism is
RENDERED WHOLLY IMPOSSIBLE BY THE
TOMB
that adjournment of the court of inquiry.
Having no magical power the pulpit can
come to the world only in the name of stu.
dent of these questions; and of student not
having an interest that may bias his judg-
ment and lead him to see the light where
there is darkness but student having the in
terest which upholds him in the study and toll.
The infidel and the anti-Christian do the
pulpit at large an injustice when they repre-
sent the clergy as being men either without
thought or with only prejudiced thought. The
real truth is that men must be prepossessed
somewhat with a theory before they will con-
sent to study it. This love does not imply
an exaggeration of evidence and conclusion.
but it implies a zeal that will lead the mind
to study up the truths of the case Hugh
Miller and Cuvier and Audubon came to
their branches Of science with a powerful
love of them, but this love did not lead them
to fabricate data and conclusions. 1t only
braced them up to seek out the facts with in
finite patience All men must come to their
work with love of it. This love will not
be prejudice, but stimulous. To the pull
pit the infdel mind should coneede the truth
fulness and rightness of a progression that
may not supply and fabricate facts,
but that may make their labors
pleasure instead of a bondage The
true clergyman is like the geologist
or botanist, not drawing from his prepos-
sions his logic, but only his zeal and his re-
wards And so fast is the influence of morals
and of spiritual ideas upon human life that
It ought to be conceded to the average clergy
man that his zeal is as we'll founded as the
enthusiasm of an Audubon, who only studies
birds. or of Cuvier, who studies only
brutes, or even of Newton, who studies only
bulks of material Making allowance for
many exceptions, you, my young friends,
will, upon entering any of the modern
churches, find the minister of religion think
ing along amid his spiritual problems with
the same earnestness and honor that marked
the old statesmen when they bent over the
problems of liberty, or that marked a Will
liam Harvey when he studied the circula-
ton of the blood. All are alike students of
THE ENDLESS PAGES OF NATURE.
In pondering upon so radical a question
as the existence of a God, it may be well for
those young and old men who are bitterly
hostile to the church to remember that this
is not church question, but human inqui-
~. Whether there is an inspired volume
N0eLner LneTe snOulu DC rope OF a DlS0Op
these are ecclesiastical themes, but the fact
of Creator has always been human in
quiry, just as dear to philosophy as to re-
ligion, just as amazing to the Greek and
Roman lawyers as to the Apostles, as attrac-
tive to Xenophon as to Paley 1t may well
commend to the candor and seriousness of
all men that his belief in God did not orig
mate with church, but came into the world
oy command of that reasoning from effect to
cause which belongs to the human mind in
its universal form. The church builds in
deed upon the idea, but take the church all
away and the idea would remain. The
church builds its temples upon the earth, but
remove all these buildings and the earth
would remain, and so the spiritual church
builds upon the assumption Of Deity, but
destroy all these places of worship and burn
all the priests of religion, and lol each bios
soming spring would remind you of Crea-
tor, and each deathbed in your house would
make your heart become an altar and you a
devout nriest in vOur own stricken family