IS FAITH DEAD?

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4356, 6 March 1875, Page 3

IS FAITH DEAD?

(From the New York Herald, Nov. 29.)

The eccentricities of modern scientists are very interesting as signs of the , times and as illustrations of the absolute freedom of thought in the nineteenth century. With no restraint whatever these intellectual free lances roam the planet, ready to tilt -with any adversary, and so eager to draw the sword of au undaunted . logic that it- makes, little difference whether their opponent is a superannuated superstition, which is unhorsed at the first onset, or a mature faith, against whose coat of mail they dull the edge of their Damascus blades. Science is like Admirable Crichton in the comeliness and fascination of its person and in the reckless willingness with which it enters a controversy or a tournament. Strong in its confidence in its own logic and power, it has become of late 'years fanatical and impatient of all tradition, and so completely iconoclastic that it would clear the Church universal of its present objects of faith and substitute facts for God.

Taken in all their baldness,- and Svithout that circumlocution which covers their shoulders .with the purple of eloquent rhetoric, the facts which we are expected to receive in the stead of religion are exceedingly amusing. Mr. Tyndall, ’ for instance, having tried to weigh the mystery of prayer in his balances and found it imponderable, concludes that it has no more value than a dream ; that it. is, at best, only an act of self-magnetism, and, therefore, practically a myth, a delusion, which ought to be exploded in the name of scientific truth. If the world is unwilling to discontinue its daily petitions on the strength of his ipse dixit he proposes to try an experiment, namely, to open the-sluiceway of the world’s vocabulary and see whether .the stream will or will not turn God’s mill. In a,word, he proposes to : summon the Almighty to the bar of a scientific- cross-examination, :and /: ,unleeo. tho questions put are answered promptly and according to the technical knowledge, of the counsel, the function- of-prayer is to be denounced as a delusion, and the act of prayer is, in legal phrase, to cease and determine. ■' In like maimer Mr, Huxley' disposes of human accountability as . being simply the different phases of 'a diseas?. A man is a con- - course of fortuitous atoms, and is virtuous or vicious according to the , degree -> of. internalinflammation. He is a very cunningly con-1 trived—no, not contrived, because contrivance proves personal authorship—a very curious conjunction of particles; a sort > of chemical compound that takes .its only color and complexion from surrounding circumstances, a kind of chameleon, which, clinging -to a church steeple, .becomes religious, and, living-in a shanty, becomes brutal. That is the sum total of manhood. Such a statement as this involves a change in the whole economy of society of Course. , Instead of prisons we ought to have hospitals, in which the molecular forces can be coaxed into that' conjunction which is virtue, and instead of sermons we ought to hove medi- ’ cine. Paregoric, and' not theology, is themoving energy of the world. Aihiirderer is a clock with- the, mainspring broken, and a drunkard is an. engine .'whose, regulator is out of order. Both should.be sent tq the mechanic for. repair, .and not.to, the.. Protestant or, Cathoilic/confessional for help.;. / :■ - iI ’ As though these two were , not enough to effect the; general destruction. Of.;.faith Mr. Mill, in a work on religion; which; for good and sufficient reasons; he, did not care to have; -published until .he had been -laid under the sod, opens a running fire along the whole line; of - popular belief, as if he expected that all the creeds of history would soon follow-him to the grave.’!’ It isaWery sad fact that mankind has ever built a church, and has been so weak, intellectually,-as to be .tempted into credence in a revelation, a miracle, or a personal God. But he consoles himself with the fervent hope that the'spirit of progress; like the.india-rubber end of a pencil, will erase such follies, and fill. up the blank thus caused with science, metaphysics, and psychology. ' That a small class of the community will be 'affected <by ! these ! vagaries : uone.hvill {deny. There is in every generation a certain proportion who know just enough! to' doubt who will grow robust on this sort of pabulum, and who ■ will make these wholesale denials the excuse and the basis of social insanities, of disrupting and disintegrating theories of domestic life. They will rush to'all sorts of unheard of extremes, and, .after' painful parturition, give birth ■to matrimonial and communal (deformities' which a healthy political economy can never'adopt.' ", . 1 ! - But'so far os that religious faith is concerned which has woven the marvellous fabric of-.history, it remains'and will remain undisturbed; . The pulpit of all lands will speak long after eternal silence shall be'set as a seal on the lips of doubt. Man's consciousness of personal accountability is hot ah accretion which may be removed by the surgeon’s knife, but is as inseparable from his nature as its perfume is inseparable from the. rose. A stately ship on her voyage .to distant lands may sometimes, take, the top of,a wave on board, but it does not follow thence that the ocean is winning the victory. On tho contrary she is built with special reference to this probability, and like a giant dashes the large waves aside, and through clouds of foam and cataracts of spray drives on in gale and storm. Such is the religious faith of mankind. -Men have always believed in' certain 'spiritual verities, and the probability is that they will continue to believe in them until the planet bursts, and Tyndall, Huxley, Mill and all the rest of us ascertain the truth* or falsehood of our pet theories by actual vision.