d cannot understand? Had it not been for
investigation and reason, we would still have believed the earth to be
flat, and in the rising and setting of the sun.

There is a law governing all things. There is a connecting link between
earth, air and sea, between flowers, beasts and birds, between mankind
and all animals, and inanimate things, a mysterious joining of mind to
matter. It is an intangible something, perhaps an electrical current,
but certain it is that the line is there and unbroken, and between every
human creature whom God has made, there is the same unbroken chain,
which can be followed up link by link, step by step, until we find
ourselves on the boundaries of the next world and perhaps beyond; who
can tell? The chain may be unbroken even then.

What matters it if I do not believe?--perhaps because I do no not
understand your creeds, your dogmas. What matters it if I do not
interpret the working of Gods ways in the same manner which you do?

There is the same principle guiding us all, and we bow the head
reverently to the one God who "is the same yesterday, to day and
forever."

Nations, like individuals, pass through the usual form of youth,
manhood, old age, and decay. Religion, like nations and individuals,
passes through the regular gradation, first of infancy, when religious
ideas and thoughts are crude in the extreme; the age of Puritanism, when
innocent women and children are burned at the stake for witchcraft, when
with gloomy faces and in unsightly dress the poor fanatics sacrificed
every pleasure on the altar of duty; the time when Sunday was a day of
horror to children from its gloom, a day when every innocent amusement
was forbidden. After religion's infancy comes youth. At that stage, the
absurd dress and gloomy faces were not considered essential adjuncts to
religion, but free discussion was not allowed upon religious subjects.
Everything must be taken for granted, without any investigation on the
part of the people. After youth comes manhood, the time when reason has
full sway, when superstition and credulities form no part of religious
teaching and thought. People are able to think, to reason for
themselves. After the age of manhood, comes old age and that is the
stage of agnosticism. Questions are being asked, and ideas propounded
which must not be overlooked nor treated with contempt. All questions
asked in a fair spirit, must be answered in a fair manner. It is not
sufficient to say