MR HORNE'S LETTER

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3634, 19 August 1880, Page 3

MR HORNE'S LETTER

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.) Sib,—With your permission, there are one or two passages in Mr Horn's letter of last night which I will notice. He says, "No one can positively have high and exalted aims that only believes in this . life; every action of their lives must of necessity be of the earth, earthy," and that "Doing good to others as we have opportunity, can never be done by a Materialist, ■ they are short of the motive power." Does Mr Horn want proof to show that he is mistaken P and what proof shall I give him P I have not the life of anyone who only believes in this life, to quote from, so I can give no proof that way. But I have been personally acquainted with a few such men; and, if lean know anything, they were not so earthy (sordid and mean is meant, I suppose) as your correspondent asserts, for it is simply an assertion but one of the heartless species of "He that believetb not shall be damned;" and if I put one from Coleridge alongside of it, it will show, " Many men, many minds." The poet has somewhere said, "There is not one man in a thousand has.courage enough, or goodness of heart enough to be an atheist." STour correspondent may have reasoned the matter, but I am afraid he has put "the cart before the horse," for I fail to see the connecting link be* tween a man's high and exalted aims and his belief in a life after this. That there are "black sheep" in every flock is a truism that can't be " rnbbed out; " but, as a rule, it is not man's religion that makes him what he is; and I think I put the horse in the right place when I say that the belief does not make the man, but the man the belief, and ttie nature the man. If any man can possibly have truly high and exalted aims, and if they mean " Doing good to others as we have opportunity," it seems to me that the belief in a future state is "out of it;" and the men who believe in this life only are the men above all other men to "make the best of it;" and making the best of it does not mean'sordid and mean/but " high sonied and, generous," for. " it is more blessed to give than receive." They are the men above all other men to enjoy this life, seeing it is the Only one they expect to have the chance of, and to enjoy life does not mean grabbing all they can Set, but going through the world with beir eyes and their ears and their hearts and their hands open. "To be happy consists chiefly in seeing others happy," and those in whose defence I write know it, and act on it, and that from their nature, and as " a privilege not a duty." I conclude with a verse from one of the "earthy"—

" What were it to the high-eonled, generous I man, '■ :'. ' ' ' | Whose life it one rich round of love bestowing, Though half the world within its finite span, Denied his being, all his good unknowing ? It would not turn him from his work of Love, On Love's ennobling influence relying; Strong in the faith, that yet, good work* . will move The world from all its sorrow, sin, and sighing." I am, &c, Jas. Simpson. 19th August, 1880.