OCR Text |
Show Incredulity. UNBELIEF is unreasonable. Skepticism, Skep-ticism, when pressed to its logical conclusions, becomes absurd. Unbelief, Un-belief, now so prevalent, is two-fold, or may be viewed under two different aspects. as-pects. One class of unbelievers profess to be guided by reason alone, disclaim the realm of mystery which the'y term a superstition. They deny Christianity, and are either Indifferent of, or live forgetful for-getful of a future life. A second class claim to have outgrown the faith- of their youth. Absolute Incredulity is an illusion, and nothing more than a mere word. A school of unbelievers does not exist. Those who claim to have outgrown out-grown their faith, when face to face with some great peril are terrorized by their former belief, and are like the timid traveler who, in the stillness of the night, sings aloud to drown his fear. The unbelievers who appeal to reason to justify their rejection of Christianity, Christian-ity, because some of its teachings include in-clude mysteries, are not absolute unbelievers. un-believers. With those who proclaim themselves as such, it Is a case of substitution. sub-stitution. Their objects of belief are changed and very frequently they believe be-lieve things far less admlssable to reason rea-son than Christian tenets. Skepticism unfolds another weakness of a darkened understanding which is refuted by Its own absurd conclusions. The skeptic maintains that the real truth of things cannot be know in any case, and will affirm or deny anything in regard to reality as opposed to appearance. ap-pearance. The privilege claimed by the skeptic is the right to deny any and every known truth. Granting the liberty lib-erty claimed, the skeptic must bear the logical consequences of his incredulity. He may, for example, deny the noble deeds, personal virtues or the very existence ex-istence of George Washington. But all these are .a portion of ground already occupied by historical evidence, and the skeptic, in his denial, makes an act of faith, i. e.i he professeg that the universal uni-versal testimony of mankind is erroneous. er-roneous. The logical conclusion is an absurdity. The skeptic may, too, deny the existence of the sun in the heavens, but the negation implies an act of faith, namely, that the universal evidence of the senses is false. Herein again he commits the sin of absurdity, and his dogma, proclaimed in the name of lib- j erty and intellectual progress, is in- ' sane. " Christianity is in the field. It has taught the human race for twenty centuries. cen-turies. It has been and is today the canon by which faith and incredulity are discriminated. He, who rejects iti tenet of the creation of the world, must believe the world to be either self-exist- ent, or self-created, two Impossible suppositions. To reject the divinity of Jesus Christ, one must believe that he was a man like himself, that his miracles, mira-cles, his resurrection, the institution of his church, his ascension into heaven, are all shams, a superstitution, though attested in history much more forcibly and completely than anything in the lives of ancient heroes. To reject the spirituality and immortality of the soul is to assert another dogma, namely, that man is about equal to the brute creation. With the agnostic, unbeliever and skeptic it is not a question of believing or rejecting what they choose, but they must believe: and as religious belief is necessarily older than unbelief, the burden bur-den of proof is always on the skeptic. There are certain natural instincts which are common to all men, to the I rudest savage equally as to the most , enlightened of our race, to the agnostic and incredulous as well as to the most profound believer. These natural in- , stincts present many mysterious ques- j tlons, which reason is unable to solve. : Who can answer the simple questions: , Whence comest thou and whither goest I thou? Are you immortal? What is. eternity? Shall you be happy or miser able? To these all-important questions there is a corresponding appetite for ! solution. The adequate food for this appetite is belief. Therefore, believe we must this or that object, because the solution of these questions evades man's reason. Christians, who profess to follow Christ, believe the dogmas which he taught. That belief, when j practically carried out, solves for them ! the problem of life. It makes the bat- ! tie of life easy by giving a foretaste of : blissful immortality. |