ir opinions." "Science has certainly made some
advancement, but where is the warrant for the boasting" of sciolists of
modern times?

Buddhists taught the most perfect outline of materialism in general.
"They believed in a supreme force, but denied the existence of a Supreme
Being. They rejected inquiry into first causes as unscientific,"
maintaining that facts alone were to be dealt with in all our
investigations.

The Brahmin contemplated the moment when his spirit would flow back into
the great "Pantheistic Being."

Modern materialists say, "We deal only with facts." "We never
speculate." The Buddhists, and the unbelievers who figure so boastingly
upon the rostrum in modern times, speak alike. They say: "As many facts
and second causes as you please, but ask no questions about first
causes; _that_ is unscientific." We should ask no questions (?) about
the invisible. They have been very true (?) to their own principles.

There is nothing speculative (?) in the hypothesis that General George
Washington was evolved from a crustacean. There never was a more absurd
and wild speculation. It is an old speculation. Anaximander, who lived
six centuries before Christ, advocated the assumption. His words are the
following: "The sun's heat, acting on the original miry earth, produced
filmy bladders or bubbles, and these, becoming surrounded with a prickly
rind, at length burst open, and as from an egg, animals came forth. At
first they were ill-formed and imperfect, but subsequently they
elaborated and developed." This has the genuine ring of the language of
modern unbelievers.

Christianity, in its beginning, had to encounter this "speculation"
along with the current literature and philosophy of a civilization which
was semi-barbarous and centuries old, but it triumphed over all, and in
the third century it triumphed everywhere. Since that time one effort
has been made upon the part of paganism to regain her former strength in
the old world. Julian made that effort. He tried to revive and establish
the supremacy of pagan thought by the power of the state. Subsequent to
this it disappeared in the east, and has only plead for toleration in
the west. But the dark ages came on in all their hideousness, and
unbelief developed itself about the close of the fifteenth century, all
over Europe. Paganism, as the result, was fostered near the bosom of
the church. The fifth Lateran Council proclaimed anew the tenet of the
imperishabi