ERROR will live wherever vermin of the mind may burrow; and error, if expelled, will return to its accustomed haunt, unless its place be otherwise occupied by some tenant of truth. Suppose that criticism has established:
1. That God is unknown.
2. That a future life is unprovable.
3. That the Bible is not a practical guide.
4. That Providence sleeps.
5. That prayer is futile.
6. That original sin is untrue.
7. That eternal perdition is unreal.
What is free thought going to do? All these theological ideas, however untrue, are forces of opinion on the side of error. After taking these doctrines out of the minds of men, as far as reasoning criticism may do it, what is proposed to be put in their place? When we call out to men that they are going down a wrong road, we are more likely to arrest their attention if we can point out the right road to take.
No mind is ever entirely empty. The objection to ignorance is not that it has no ideas, but that it has wrong ones. Its ideas are narrow, cramped, vicious. It likes without reason, hates without cause, and is suspicious of what it might trust. It is not enough to tell a man who is eating injurious food that it will harm him. If he has no other aliment, he must go on feeding upon what he has. If you cannot supply better, you cannot reproach him who takes the bad. But if you have true principles, they should be offered as substitutes for the false. Secularist truth should tread close upon the heels of theological error.