Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1881-02-10

! iHsu'di grace, anu IaFSe CLASS OF
protestant miracles, called special prov
licences or remarkable cures, revela-
tons, deliverances the idea of ghosts
of witches. of portents in the stars, or
moon, or sky; the notions connected
with Friday, with the breaking of a
looking-glass, with the ticking of a
spider and a thousand other doctrines
and fancies-they cannot be proved,
Yet to treat these improbable things
as facts or truths is not faith, but
superstition, and why? Because there
are not good reasons for so treating
! them. One cannot so treat them and
be intelligent and reasonable.
Now man might say to Us, every
well, to treat an improved, unknown
thing as true. for inadequate and I'M
worthy reasons, is superstition-pro-
vided it relates to religion OF to the
unseen and spiritual realm ?" We
answer, yes, that is it. Every we'll,
he might reply, ''we can't prove that
there is no God, that law and force are
all the God there is, that the ultimate
particles of matter contain ''the prom
Use and potency of all things; that
there is no being to worship, and no
Father to love and trust-we can
prove this-it is to us an unknown
thing, yet we treat that unknown thing
as truth and act accordingly, but we
are called "skeptics," 'doabters,
"unbelicvers,' atheists" ''infdelg,"
but never superstitious, and never are
We called men Of faith.
Yet if we have good reasons for
treating this unknown thing as true,
then by your definition we have faith,
but if our reasons are poor then our
quality is superstition
Our answer to this is two-fold = 1st,
to treat as true the notion of no God,
no Father, nothing to worship or trust
or love, above and beyond US, is not to
treat any unknown something as true.
1t is treating an unknown nothing as
true This is absurd. So faI as law
and force are concerned, they are not
objects of faith at all, we see and feel
and know them.
But 2nd if men are bound to treat
certain negations as if they were great
afirmations; certain nothings as if
they were great facts, and to set up
the law and force in an atom of rock
or water or vapor in the place of an
intelligent, and holy mind and heart
and will, and to treat such atoms as
having in them-only awaiting evolu-
tion-all the love and fear and hope
all the poetry and music +; all the con-
seriousness Of merit and demerit, and
all the experiences of their own souls,
then | say they are treating an un-
known thing as truth for very made
quate reasons, and SO far as the notions
lie in the plane of religion, they are
superstition. And so far as they lie
in the plane of philosophy, they are
credulity and folly and blindness
For what are their reasons for treat
ing such notions as truth Simply,
that no one can prove the contrary !!
which all grant. 1t is not pretended
that such notions bring hope and cour-
age to human souls; that they dignity
humanity that it gives to man a
nobler consciousness to think himself a
son of clod rather than a son of God.
It is not thought that such notions
have been the great inspirations to the
worlds progress. The reasons for treat
ing them as truth are at best only some
intellectual speeulations, that have
never fed or clothed or nourished
single body or soul since the world
began. To treat such ideas as truths
then, and to act upon them, if there
be anything religious about them, is
superstition, aud so far as they are not
religious, they are childish credulity,
the very opposite of true philosophic
faith. The some things may be said of
those who deny the doctrine of In
mortality and treat as truth the un-
proved opposite of it. Thus it turns
out that many who pride themselves
on their freedom from superstition
in their rational and Independent views
of things on their denials and their
lofty challenge Of proof for the things
which no one pretends to prove, are
after all to be classed among the cred
ulous and the supsrstitions. and the
unreasonable.
Before leaving this, word about
doubts and doubling Doubts are not
what the bible means by unbelief.
Unbelief is perhaps an unfortunate
word. 1t is not non-belief, for want
!