A CONFESSION OF FAITH.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1490, 22 September 1883, Page 2

A CONFESSION OF FAITH.

By the following somewhat enthusiastic declaration of his faith (remarks the "Pall Mall Gazette"), Senpr Castelar has recently emphasised his agreement with Mr Gladstone on tie subject of the Affirmation Bill: " Athehim cannot bemore repulsive to any one than it is to me,, in. whom the idea of God, engrafted .by'education, has grown in the same measure as my existence, and has become-mature iff the same measure as my intellect;' j have seen God in all the splendours of nature, and have gazed.at the overshadowing wings of His angels in the resplendent brillianoy of the stars; I have felt God in the purest affections I of.my heart, and have loved Him with | all the aspirations to universal chanty, ; and with all ray compassion for human' sufferings ; I have heard God in the music of the spheres and in the harmonies of the orbs; without God, I believe myself and my species to be like a hord of poor animals more matter; deceived by a diabolical

illusion. Without the idea of a God we can explain neither the loss of an atom in the confines of mortality nor the vivifying prinpiple of creation, nor without His providence can we comprehend the divine laws of universe and of lristdryi ' Consequently, hbbbdy holds the ..school ' of atheism in abomination more than I do, and nobody more believes in and adores the supreme and divine existence of the absolute and perfect Being, by whom our body and mind are animated, through whom are explained all the enigmas of universe. Yet, although ' I cannot deny that human nature, with all its limitations and imperfections, has the right to pronounce against error,'! am unable to see the efficacy of coercive remedies to prosecute and . strangle it, In this, then, I believe with the great English Minister that dogmatic and metaphysical truth cannot be enforced by coercive powers, and that the liberty of : thought ought to be respected to the" utmost verge."