"Attempt how vain,—
With things of earthly sort, with aught but God,
With aught but moral excellence, truth, and love
To satisfy and fill the immortal soul!
To satisfy the ocean with a drop;—
To marry immortality to death;
And with the unsubstantial Shade of Time
To fill the embrace of all Eternity."
FOOTNOTES:
[251] George Jacob Holyoake, "Paley Refuted in his own Words," Third Edition. London, 1850. Townley and Holyoake, "A Public Discussion on the Being of a God," Third Thousand. London, 1852. Grant and Holyoake, "Christianity and Secularism; a Public Discussion held on six successive Thursday evenings," Seventh Thousand. London, 1853.
[252] "The Reasoner," New Series, No. VIII. 115. Of this serial it is said (XII. 6, 81), "The Reasoner, which was established in 1846, has come to be regarded as the accredited organ of Freethinking in Great Britain. Indeed, for a long time, it has been the principal professed exponent of these views, addressed to the working and thinking classes."
[253] Ibid., XI. 15, 222; XII. 4, 6, 49, 81.
[254] "The Reasoner," XII. 4, 50.
[255] Ibid., XI. 18, 271.
[256] Ibid., XI. 15, 232.
[257] "The Reasoner," XII. 24, 376.
[258] Ibid., New Series, pp. 9, 130.