h is confidence, and for
confidence there must be reason. The faith to which appeal is made is
in fact an emotion rather than an intellectual conviction.

But apart from the Bible, have we any revelation of the nature, the
will, the unity, the existence of deity? It must apparently be owned
that, though we tremble at the thought, we have none. We are left upon
this shore of time gazing into infinity and eternity without clue or
guidance except such as we can gain either by inspection of our own
nature with its moral indications and promptings or by studying the
order of the universe.

We find in man, it is true, a natural belief in deity, which we might
think was implanted by his creator; but it is not found in all men, and
in the lower races it assumes forms often so low and grotesque that we
cannot imagine its origin to have been divine. Between the God of the
Christian and the god of the red Indian there is, saving mere force, no
affinity whatever. This we must frankly own to ourselves. The god of
the Mexican demanded human sacrifice.

On earth the creative power seems to be, as it were, contending against
itself. Good of every kind is in conflict with evil. Slowly and
fitfully, with many reverses, good seems to prevail. Humanity as a
whole advances, and if we could believe in its collective advance
toward an ultimate perfection which all who have contributed to the
advance should share, we might have a solution of the great problem.
But of this we have no certain assurance. Multitudes come into being
who to progress can contribute nothing. There is evil of all kinds
that so far as we can see can be followed by no good effect. Plague
and famine, with a great part of the common misfortunes of human life,
seem merely evil. So, plainly, do the sufferings of animals, sometimes
on a terrible scale and apparently quite useless. As long as effort,
even painful, is the price of perfection the price must be paid and we
acquiesce. But in innumerable cases there appears to be no room for
that explanation. The rocks display the fossil remains of whole races
of primeval animals produced apparently only to become extinct. Of the
earth itself, man's destined habitation, large portions are utterly
uninhabitable. The legendary war between the powers of good and evil,
God and Satan, Ormuzd and Ahriman, was a fable naturally devised,
though the birth of the two powers and the division of existence
between them is i