r heathen of other lands. Some of our
unbelievers have gathered the information from heathen oracles that the
future consists in being a poor, empty, shivering, table-rapping spirit,
flying to and fro over the country in response to the sigh of some silly
waiting-girl, or at the bidding of some brazen-faced, unscrupulous "free
lover." And this, "O, ye gods!" is all that ever shall be of the noblest
spirits that ever left human flesh! Others, to gain rest from this
horrible and unsatisfying fate, fly to the theory of everlasting
silence, as a result of the idea that mind is simply brain action, and
ceases to exist when the brain ceases to act. Their appropriate motto
is, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." It has been said that
even this brute philosophy is reasonable compared with the dogma of a
large portion of unbelievers, to wit., that blasphemers, thieves,
profane swearers, murderers and adulterers, will all go straight to
heaven when they die; that men with their hearts steeped in blood will
sit down with Abraham and Isaac in the kingdom of God. But
Spiritualists, Pantheists, Atheists, and Deists inform us that an
external revelation is useless. Their common exposition of the sentiment
is too well known to need comment. We hear them saying, "You need say
nothing about the Bible to me; I know my duty well enough without it;
and as for miracles, they will never prove anything to me. Can thunder,
repeated daily through centuries, make God's laws and his wisdom and
goodness more God-like? No! I am grown, perchance, to manhood, and do
not need the thunder and terror. I am not to be scared. It is not
_fear_, but _reverence_, that shall lead me! _Revelation!_ Inspiration!
And thy own God-like spirit; is not that a revelation?" See Carlyle's
"Past and Present," page 307.

Now, if Mr. Carlyle was in no need of the fear of God, somebody else
may be in a different mental and moral condition. There is nothing in
which men differ more. If one man is above the weakness of fearing God
(?) all men are not. Say what we may of fear, it is nevertheless true
that we are greatly influenced by fear. We are greatly indebted to the
fear of sickness for health, to the fear of poverty for wealth, and to
the fear of death for life. Fear is to caution what knowledge is to a
wise choice. Where there is no fear there is no caution. The love of
life and bliss is natural, therefore we fear sickness, poverty and
death. Why say with your