, 1882-06-30

metallic affinity. The world was
proudly biddcn to bend its ear and
harken to the hum and buzz of the
obedient bullet responding to the
summons of the marvellous machine.
How it did hum and buzz, We heard
it from Maine to California, and did
obcisance to science.
But when the weary soul had fled,
and this fine and far-reaching science
could fall to work like a butcher in
the shambles the bullet was not
there 1t never had been there,
Science was so wholly blind to the
bullets location that she took an hour
and half to find it, even in the
shambles. The bullet lay remote,
concealed, where kindly nature wove
around it the curtain of harmlessness,
while malignant and mischevious
us-pocket was personating it to the
credulOus surgeons and laughing
science to scorn for eighty days Life
guarded her secret we'll. Death did
but toss up flattened leaden ball to
a useless and senseless scalpel.
touch upon these dire facts, which
all men shudder to remember, not
from hostility to the surgeons, but
in utter reputation of the vain
glorious boasting of science. | fully
believe the surgeons did, with patri-
otic as well as professional honor,
their very highest best. And because
it was their highest best, religion has
a right to demand of science-an in
FAINT of days, and now self-proven to
be mewling and puking infant-to
cease her random interference with
religion, and to give herself exclusive
ly to sharpening her own eyes and
strengthening her own muscle.
Savans, how dare you, in your limit
less ignorance and impotence, tam
per with our hope of Immortality?
You are as unable as the clown or the
clod to discover the secret of physi
cal life. With what shadow of reason
shall you presume to annihiliate spi
ritual life because it's secrets elude
you7 The coarsest fanatic who can
see God only on tipping-table, does
not display so monumental faulty
as you who can only touch mortality
with your elbows, and would abne-
gate Immortality because you cannot
clutch it with your fists Cropping for
truth at the bottom of we'll, you
would blot out the sun from the heav-
ems, because you can only see the
faint glimmer of the stars.
But while her foe, science falsely
so called, nescience rightly named,
since true science and true religion
are not only not foes, but two phases
of one truth-while science is thus
humiliated, religion, if never again,
can afford to be frank, and admit
that her pretensions, too, We're a good
deal shattered by that treacherous
bullet. The faith cure was applied
and it failed just as egregiously and
just as conspicuOusly as the science
cure failed 1t was appealed to, not
with sneering and skeptical intent,
but with sincerity and humility. The
nation fell upon its knees in a COM
mon grief and a common desire.
Men We're not content to pray in Sc
cret in individual earnestness. They
wanted to intensity their earnestness
with an allied enthusiasm. They
would beseech the throne of grace in
battalions. They took the Almighty
at his word, literally, and every day
the sick man travelled towards his
tomb till he sank into it's darkness.
Then the spokesmen of religion, in
stead of recognizing the facts, and
reconstructing theories upon them,
straightway turned them about and
began to explain them away. They
refused to admit that their prayers
had not been answered, and began to
argue they had been answered, only
in another way. This is neither sci
entiic nor religious. 1t is not frank.
1t is not sensible. 1t is not scriptur-
al. If man ask bread shall God give
him stone? st. James says square
ly, the prayer of faith shall save the
sick-not make it on the whole best
that he should die. The Lord shall
raise him up, not.reconcile the nation
to seeing him cast down. The Bible
is not a straightforward, honest book if
its words must be thus twisted to
make it true. The nation in good
faith asked for the presidents life.
1t is idle to say that we wanted it if
God saw that it was best. That goes
without saying. If God saw that it
was best, He would order it himself.
No one supposes that God will ever do
less than best. The directions are
simple. The contract is easily under
stood. st. James does not hedge. The
prayer of faith shall save the sick, and
the Lord shall raise him up We
prayed the prayer of faith, and it did
not save the sick. The Lord did not
raise him up. Must it be said
that it was not the prayer of
faith? 1t was all the faith there
was. Everything of religion in the