Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-11-22
God ~ Manifest.

God f. Manifest.
Nv. e. Gladstone in Nineteenth Century,
| own my surprise not only at the
fact, but at the manner in which in this
day writers, whose name is legion, I'M
impeached in character, and Astounding
in talent, not only put away from them,
cast into shadow, or into the very gulf
of negation itself, the conception of
Deity, an acting and a ruling Deity.
OF this belief, which has satisfied the
doubts, and wiped away the tears, and
found guidance for the footsteps of so
many a weary wanderer on earth,
which among the best and great
est of our race has been so
cherished by those who had it,
and so longed and sought for by
those who had 1t not, we might sup
pose that if at length we had discovered
that it was in the light of truth untena-
Bile, that the accumulated testimony Of
man was worthless. and that his wis
dom was but folly, yet at least the de-
cencies of mourning would be vouch-
safed to this irreparable loss. Instead
of this. it is with Joy and exultation
that might almost recall the frantic
orgies of the Commune that this. at
least at first sight, terrific and over
whelming calamity is accepted and re-
corded as a gain. One recent, and in
many ways respected, writer-a woman
long wont to unship creed as sailOcs
discharge excess of cargo in storm,
and passing at length into formal athe-
ism-rejoices to find herself on the
open, free, and breezy common of hu-
maDity." Another, also a woman, and
dealing only with the working and mani
festations OF God, finds in the theory Of
a physical evolution as recently deyel-
oped by Mr.. Darwin and received with
extensive favor, both an emancipation
from error and novelty in kind. She
rejoices to think that now at last
Darwin shows life as harmonious
whole, and makes the future stride pos
sible by the past advance" Evolution,
that is physical evolution. which alone
is in view, may be true like the solar
theory, may be delightful and wonder
full, in its right place but are we really
to understand that varieties of animals
brought about through domestication,
the wasting of organs for instance, the
tails of men) by disuse, that natural
selection and the survival of the fit
test, all in the physical order, ex-
hibit to us the great arcaaum Of
creation, the sum and centre of life,
so that mind and spirit are dethroned
from their old supremacy, are
no longer sovereign by right, but may
find somewhere by charity place as
signed them, as appendages, perhaps
only as excrescences Of the material
creation? contend that evolution in
its highest form has not been a thing
heretofore unknown to history, to phi
losophy, or to the ology. contend that
it was before the mind of st. Paul
when he taught that in the fulness of
time God sent forth His Son, and of
Eusebius when he wrote the " Prepa-
ration for the Gospel" and of Angus
tine when he composed the
"City Of Cod; and beauti-
full and splendid as are the les
sons taught by natural objects, they
are, for Christendom, at least, indeii-
nitely beneath the sublime unfolding of
the great drama of human action, in
which, through long ages, Greece was
making ready a language and an intel
lectual type, and Rome a framework
of order and an idea of law, such that
in them were to be shaped and fashion
ed the destinies Of regenerated world.
For those who believe that the old
foundations are mistaken still, and
that the fabric built upon them will
look down for ages on the floating
wreck of many a modern and boast
full theory, it is difficult to see
but infatuation in the de-
structive temperament which leads to
the notion that to substitute a blind
for the hand of God in the
affairs of life is to enlarge the scope of
remedial agency; that to dismiss the
highest of all inspirations is to elevate
the strain Of human thought and life;
and that each of us is to rejoice that
our several units are to be disintegrated
at death into countless millions of
organisms "; for such, it seems, is the
latest revelation" delivered from
the fragile tripod Of modern
Delphi. Assuredly on the minds
of those who believe, or else on the
minds Of those who, after this fashion,
there lies some deep judicial
darkness. darkness that may be felt.
While disbelief in the eyes Of faith is a
sore calamity, this kind Of disbelief,
which renounces and repudiates with
more than satisfaction what is brightest
and best in the inheritance Of man, is
astounding, and might be deemed in
credible. Nay, some will say, rather
than accept the flimsy and hollow con-
solutions which it makes bold to offer,
might we not 60 back to solar adora-
ton, or, with Goethe, to the hollows of
OlvmDuee