The Sea Lions; Or, The Lost Sealers

by James Fenimore Cooper

Almost every one has heard or read of that collection of stars which goes by the name of the Southern Cross. The resemblance to the tree on which Christ suffered is not particularly striking, though all who navigate the southern hemisphere know it, and recognize it by its imputed appellation. It now attracted Roswell's gaze; and coming as it did after so much reading, so many conversations with Stephen, and addressing itself to one whose heart was softened by the fearful circumstances that had so long environed the sealers, it is not surprising that it brought our young master to meditate seriously on his true condition in connection with the atonement that he was willing to admit had been made for him, in common with all of earth, at the very moment he hesitated to believe that the sufferer was, in any other than a metaphorical sense, the Son of God.

It is not our intention to describe more of the religious for me. Where there is the same knowledge, there is too much companionship, like, for worship and reverence."

"But we are told that man was created after the image of God."

"In his likeness, Captain Gar'ner--with some of the Divine Spirit, but not with all. That makes him different from the brutes, and immortal. I have convarsed with a clergyman who thinks that the angels, and archangels, and other heavenly beings, are far before even the Saints in Heaven, such as have been only men on 'arth."

The idea of not having a Deity that he could not comprehend had long been one of Roswell Gardiner's favourite rules of faith. He did not understand by this pretending dogma, that he was, in any respect, of capacity equal to comprehend with that of the Divine Being, but simply that he was not to be expected or required to believe in any theory which manifestly conflicted with his knowledge and experience, as both were controlled by the powers of induction he had derived directly from his Creator. In a word, his exception was one of the most obvious of the suggestions of the pride of reason, and just so much in direct opposition to the great law of regeneration, which has its very gist in the converse of this feeling --Faith.

As our young master paced the terrace alone, that idea of the necessity of the Creator's being incomprehensible to the created, recurred to him. The hour that succeeded was probably the most important in Roswell Gardiners life. So intense were his feelings, so active the workings of his mind, that he was quite insensible to the intensity of the cold; and his body keeping equal motion with his thoughts, if one may so express it, his frame actually set at defiance a temperature that might otherwise have chilled it, warmly and carefully as it was clad.

Truly there were many causes existing at that time and place, to bring any man to a just sense of his real position in the scale of created beings. The vault above Roswell was sparkling with orbs floating in space, most of them far more vast than this earth, and each of them doubtless having its present or destined use. What was that light, so brilliant and pervading throughout space, that converted each of those masses of dark matter into globes clothed with a glorious brightness? Roswell had seen chemical experiments that produced wonderful illuminations; but faint, indeed, were the most glowing of those artificial torches, to the floods of light that came streaming out of the void, on missions of millions and millions of miles. Who, and what was the Dread Being--dread in his Majesty and Justice, but inexhaustible in Love and Mercy--who used these exceeding means as mere instruments of his pleasure? and what was he himself, that he should presume to set up his miserable pride of reason, in opposition to a revelation supported by miracles that must be admitted to come through men inspired by the Deity, or rejected altogether?

In this frame of mind Roswell was made to see that Christianity admitted of no half-way belief; it was all true, or it was wholly false.

And why should not Christ be the Son of God, as the Fathers of the Church had perseveringly, but so simply proclaimed, and as that church had continued to teach for eighteen centuries? Roswell believed himself to have been created in the image of God; and his much-prized reason told him that he could perpetuate himself in successors: and that which the Creator had given him the power to achieve, could he not in his own person perform? For the first time, an inference to the contrary seemed to be illogical.

Then the necessity for the great expiation occurred to his mind. This had always been a stumbling-block to Roswell's faith. He could not see it; and that which he could not see he was indisposed to believe. Here was the besetting weakness of his character; a weakness which did not suffer him to perceive that could he comprehend so profound a mystery, he would be raised far above that very nature in which he took so much pride. As he reflected on this branch of the subject, a thousand mysteries, physical and moral, floated before his mind; and he became aware of the little probability that he should have been endowed with the faculties to comprehend this, the greatest of them all. Had not science gradually discovered the chemical processes by which gases could be concentrated and disengaged, the formation of one of those glittering orbs above his head would have been quite as unintelligible a mystery to him, as the incarnation of the Saviour. The fact was, that phenomena that were just as mysterious to the human mind as any that the dogmas of Christianity required to be believed, exist hourly before our eyes without awakening skepticism, or exciting discussion; finding their impunity in their familiarity. Many of these phenomena were strictly incomprehensible to human understandings, which could reason up to a fountain-head in each case; and there it was obliged to abandon the inductive process, purely for the want of power to grapple with the premises which control the whole demonstration.