into hopeless ruin, were the
ideas of a Supreme Being, of accountableness and of a future life to be
utterly erased from every mind.

3. And, let men thoroughly believe that they are the work and sport of
chance; that no superior intelligence concerns itself with human affairs;
that all their improvements perish forever at death; that the weak have no
guardian, and the injured no avenger; that there is no recompense for
sacrifices to uprightness and the public good; that an oath is unheard in
heaven; that secret crimes have no witness but the perpetrator; that human
existence has no purpose, and human virtue no unfailing friend; that this
brief life is everything to us, and death is total, everlasting
extinction; once let them thoroughly abandon religion, and who can
conceive or describe the extent of the desolation which would follow?

4. We hope, perhaps, that human laws and natural sympathy would hold
society together. As reasonably might we believe that were the sun
quenched in the heavens, our torches would illuminate, and our fires
quicken and fertilize the creation. What is there in human nature to
awaken respect and tenderness, if man is the unprotected insect of a day?
And what is he more, if atheism be true?

5. Erase all thought and fear of God from a community, and selfishness and
sensuality would absorb the whole man. Appetite, knowing no restraint, and
suffering, having no solace or hope, would trample in scorn on the
restraints of human laws. Virtue, duty, principle, would be mocked and
spurned as unmeaning sounds. A sordid self-interest would supplant every
feeling; and man would become, in fact, what the theory in atheism
declares him to be,--a companion for brutes.

DEFINITIONS.--1. Com-mu'ni-ty, society at large, the public. Dif-fu'sion,
extension, spread. En-light'ened, elevated by knowledge and religion. 2.
Fab'ric, any system composed of connected parts. Erased', blotted out. 3.
Per'pe-tra-tor, one who commits a crime. Ex-tinc'tion, a putting an end
to. 4. Fer'ti-lize, to make fruitful. A'the-ism, disbelief in God.
Sen-su-al'i-ty, indulgence in animal pleasure.

XCIV. ROCK ME TO SLEEP.

Elizabeth Akers Allen (b. 1832,--) was born at Strong, Maine, and passed
her childhood amidst the picturesque scenery of that neighborhood. She
lost her mother when very young, but inherited her grace and delicacy of
thought. Shortly after her mother's death, her father removed to
Farmington, Maine, a to