The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1880-07-28
4 REBELLION.

The world, in the progress of civiliza-
ton, and the unprecedented activity
which characterizes the human intellect
In our day, has reached stage of intense
self-consciousness. The old pagan CROPPED
in the dark. Bewildered and confound-
ed, he allowed himself to drift posing
himself on vague yet feeble hopefulness
with regard to the hereafter. The Bud
dhist, whose metaphysical philosophy was
the prOfoundest of all, recognized the
wretchedness of man, and sought relief
in return to Oblivion The Platonists
scared to sublime heights, and were the
optimists of antiquity, but left out of
their philosophy the fact of human de-
pravity, and the necessity of some method
OF reconciliation to God The Epicurean,
utterly de-spiritualized, relieved his fears
by treating man as brute, and lived like
an animal
By the time that Paganism in Europe
and Western Asia was well overthrow,
Christianity began to lose its earnestness,
and Europe gradually entered into the
slumber of the middle ages. Since the
Reformation there has been great awak-
ening, but it is re-eminently in the nine
teenth century that humanity has been
fairly aroused under the light of Chris
tianity. Amid all the progress in knowl-
edge which has been made-the wonder
full advances in every department of
science and the arts of civilized life-on
our glittering cities, and institutions of
learning, and steam, and electricity, and
mechanical contrivances, the Sun of Chris
tianity shines down with noontide splen-
dor.
What next? says the astronomer, as
he sweeps the heavens with his telescope.
What next? says the naturalist, as he
brings into view the myriad forms of
microscopic life with his glass. What
next? says the geologist as he disentombs
from the bowels of the earth the count
less evidences of the long succession of
animal life that has peopled the globe.
What next? says the engineer as he
ploughs the ocean with his huge levia-
thans and sets the continents in motion
with his swiftly-moving trains.
Men realize the splendor of knowledge
what splendid thing it is to live
how vast are the capacities of humanity.
All is buoyant with the promise and the
potency of human life. There is new
exhilaration as step after step is taken,
and fresh discoveries open up still un-
folding vistas of knowledge
There is only one difficulty: the whole
scene isilluminated by light from heaven.
And now the Tower-Builders are con-
fronted with the fact that there is a Lion
in the path.
AS they have laid hold with intensity
on every thing else in this age, and as if
humanity were only for the first time now
fully awake, so too for the first time as it
were men fix their look on Christianity,
and demand to know if theology really
means all that it has been teaching these
many hundred years2 Science must be-
stow a scientific attention on Christianity.
The day Of unthorough work is past.
We wish to know we may fancy that we
hear them say, what all this means? The
time to settle this question, say the illu-
minati Of science, has come. 1--WE are
looking into every thing now, and we
have heard about hell and judgment to
come and all such things long enough.
They obstruct our path, and if, as we sus-
pect, they are false, we intend to get them
out Of the way"
If the theology of the Christian clergy
is true, there is something else besides
telescopes and microscopes and poetry
and music and machinery.