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Title: The Heavenly Father
Lectures on Modern Atheism

Author: Ernest Naville

Translator: Henry Downton

Release Date: April 14, 2006 [EBook #18168]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE HEAVENLY FATHER.

Lectures on Modern Atheism.

BY

ERNEST NAVILLE,

CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE (ACADEMY OF THE MORAL
AND POLITICAL SCIENCES), LATE PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF GENEVA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH

BY HENRY DOWNTON, M.A.,

ENGLISH CHAPLAIN AT GENEVA.

--"To this deplorable error I desire to oppose faith in GOD as it
has been given to the world by the Gospel--faith in the HEAVENLY
FATHER."
_Author's Letter to Professor Faraday_ (v. p. 193).

BOSTON:

WILLIAM V. SPENCER

1867.

CAMBRIDGE:

PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.

PREFACE.

These Lectures, in their original form, were delivered at Geneva, and
afterwards at Lausanne, before two auditories which together numbered
about two thousand five hundred men. A Swiss Review published
considerable portions of them, which had been taken down in short-hand,
and on reading these portions, several persons, belonging to different
countries, conceived the idea of translating the work when completed by
the Author, and corrected for publication. Proof-sheets were accordingly
sent to the translators as they came from the press: and thus this
volume will appear pretty nearly at the same time in several of the
languages of Europe.

The hearty kindness with which my fellow-countrymen received my words
has been to me both a delight and an encouragement. The expressions of
sympathy which have reached me from abroad allow me to hope that these
pages, notwithstanding the deficiencies and imperfections of which I am
keenly sensible, reflect some few of the rays of the truth which God has
deposited on the earth, thereby to unite in the same faith and