CHAPTER LXVIII.

THE LAST RESORT.

WHILE reading, I found evidence against my system of infidelity wherever I turned, such as meets every one who ventures to read closely. There was one process of investigation, and only one which was left for me to pursue, unless I yielded. That process was to cast away all records and traditions, to sit down and endeavor to decide the question by the aid of reason alone. This seemed inviting. It seemed to make man his own judge. I had always heard my companions the deists calling reason the celestial lamp, the only light, the polar star, and other names of triumphant admiration. I felt a disposition, as it seemed to me, to walk along the path of reason quietly and alone, and to notice objects on either hand fairly and deliberately. I made the attempt, and the following is something of the result of my last resort.

THE GOODNESS OF GOD. This seemed to be a starting point, and one of the first facts to fix on. My associates were willing to speak of the goodness of God, and I thought I saw it manifested, while I looked over creation. I saw fruit drop from the overloaded tree. I saw the full crop wave in the field, and barns.crowded at home. The breeze that passed me in summer was fresh and fragrant. The cold spring was delightful to the parched palate. The flower was fashioned to please the eye which rested

on it. The hum of the grove and the gush of the waterfall were calculated to communicate happiness through the ear. In short, the indications of a Creator's kindness were in every direction, and in number really countless. I thought that nothing was more rational than to fix upon it as a certain truth, that the Maker of all things is good. To settle down upon this doctrine was pleasing enough, except that certain contingent facts intruded themselves. They were calculated to produce some degree of uneasiness, especially if followed out in all their bearings. The first fact and the inquiries it excited were as follows: The Christians speak as loudly of the kindness, the daily kindness, and the benevolence of God as we do. Have they learned it of us, or have we learned of them; or how is it that we agree?

SECOND FACT. Although we think that our reason has discovered the goodness and the purity of God so plainly, yet pagans who had no guide but reason. have always worshipped him as revengeful and polluted. The ancient enlightened nations, the Greeks, and then the Romans, with so much learning, sung about the intrigues and adulteries, the frauds and the cruelties of their deities, although they had no Bible to interrupt their reason. Out of all the nations that

do exist, or ever did exist without our Scriptures, might not reason have taught some one of them the goodness and the purity of God? Might not their sages be able to give a character of God, something nearly as correct as we can hear from the most unlearned with us? In the following unadorned fact, there was something fitted to excite the fear that the

army of deists had received their knowledge, either directly or circuitously, from the book which they disowned. It is a fact, that were I to go to ten hundred thousand of the most learned Asiatics or other pagans now alive, one after another, and hear them speak of God, I should not receive a character half as correct, according to the creed of deists, as that which I might obtain from the first ten ploughmen I met, provided there was a Bible and a meeting-house in the land where they lived. I knew that reason could see through the mysteries of gunpowder in the course of a minute after it is explained; but it was long before the discovery was made. I knew that reason assents to the first principles of astronomy, as soon as they are presented; nothing appears plainer: but reason was long in finding out these truths. Thus I could not tell but that, although, as soon as the Bible informs those who hate it in Christian lands of certain truths about God, nothing appears plainer to them, they may think they have always known it, while the most energetic minds where the Bible is not do not learn so fast. They certainly never have been known to find out the excellence and purity of Omnipotence, unassisted. Although somewhat suspicious that this doctrine of the unbounded goodness, and wisdom, and power, and purity of God, had first been taught by one book alone, knowing it to be true I concluded to rest upon it as so, and to look around for other facts, or for rational and plain inferences.

DOCTRINES INQUired after. The following questions and facts commingled would pass in succession through my mind.

We agree that God is good, and wise, and kind, like a tender parent. Having cast away the Scriptures, we agree that God has not told us certainly whether we live again after death or not. He has not told us, if we do live, how long it is to be-seventy years again, or longer? I knew that reason could not decide these inquiries; because no three of my associates, the advocates of reason, out of all I could meet with, ever agreed on these particulars. According to our belief, he has not told us, if we live hereafter, whether it is to be in connection with a body or not. I should like to know. We are not told whether we are to be judged or not for what we do to-day. It would be well to know this. Shall we live always? Will our judgment be severe? Will there be sickness in the next state, or is it all health? Those who admire reason most do not know, for two of them do not believe alike. Reason has not taught; of course it is an uncertain guide, or there is no information given us. I thought the color of the rainbow a token of the Creator's kindness; but I would rather it had been black, than not to have known whether I am to live after I am buried. I wish he had told me. I thought that our Father made the color of the forest leaf green, because it fits the eye; but I would agree it should be red always hereafter, if I could only find out whether or not I am to be judged for my conduct. Is my every-day conduct to be reviewed hereafter? I wish our Father had told us. It would not have been hard for him to have done this, or cost much time. Thus I was tossed from point to point of several sharp prominences

То say that reason was our heavenly lamp, and that her worshippers had never yet discovered these things, or that they discovered differently, for they thought differently, was somewhat awkward. To say that I must act every minute, and yet it was not very important for me to know whether or not I was ever to be tried for my actions, did not sound smoothly. To say that reason had taught us what our Creator hated most, was too hard, because the disciples of reason all differed fundamentally here also; some thought one way and some another. To say that I need not know what pleased or displeased him most, was still unharmonious. I began to doubt whether "the celestial lamp" of reason would show me objects more distinctly than the page of Matthew.