“Yes. I should think that James might have come.” Aunt Nancy held desperately to the thread she had caught.
“James is a little John,” replied Bessie, pouring the hot, green applesauce into a straight, white bowl with a band of narrow blue stripes around the middle of it. “Never mind my coming alone, Aunt Nancy. I got along very well, and they will do very well without me.”
They sat down to the table, and Bessie made a great pretence of eating, but ate nothing. Then they went out and looked at the garden, talking all the while about nothing, and soon, to the relief of both, it was bed-time.
To Be Continued.
Where Are You Going?
We happened, the other day, to notice in the columns of a ribald infidel newspaper an advertisement in which a young lady gave notice of her desire to find “board in an infidel or atheist family.” There are many persons nowadays who are looking for a lodging-place and for food which will give rest and refreshment to their minds and hearts, in the bosom of the infidel and atheistic family circle. They may not, in most cases, distinctly perceive and expressly avow that they are going over to dwell in the tents of atheism, but they have turned their faces and steps in that direction, and into the path leading thitherward, and those who keep on their way must arrive, sooner or later, at that destination. It is to these that we address the question: Where are you going? We would like to have them reflect a little on the kind of entertainment which they may reasonably expect to find in the private family of the household, and in the larger family of human society, when these are constituted on atheistic principles.
Before going any further, we will designate more precisely what class of persons we intend by the above description. In general, all who do not believe in a law made known to the mind and conscience by Almighty God, and, in particular, those who, having been brought up in the Catholic faith, no longer believe in that law as made known by the authority of the church. We class these last individuals, for whose benefit chiefly though not exclusively we are writing, with those first mentioned advisedly and for a reason; and warn them that they are included in the number of those whose faces are set toward atheism. Nevertheless, we do not say this on the ground that every one who is not a Catholic is either incapable of knowing God and his law, or logically bound to deny their existence. A Theist, a Jew, or a Protestant has a rational ground for holding against the atheist or infidel all that portion of Catholic truth which his religion includes. Therefore, we have not included any of these in the number of the atheistical.
Those only who do not believe in any law of God over the conscience we have charged with this tendency to positive atheism. Against such, the justice of the charge is manifest. For they are practically atheists already, and by denying an essential attribute of the Creator, and a relation which the creature must have toward him on account of this attribute, the way is opened to a denial of his existence. As for those who have been instructed in the Catholic faith and have thrown off its authority over their conscience, we say that they have turned towards atheism, because we are convinced that, as a matter of fact, the motives and reasonings which have induced them to this fatal apostasy are practically and theoretically atheistical, even if they themselves are not distinctly aware of their ultimate tendency. We do not deny that a Catholic may lapse into some imperfect form of Christianity or natural religion. The first Protestants had been originally Catholics, and so have been some of the so-called philosophers professing natural religion. But the present tendency of unbelief is toward atheism, and those believers in positive, revealed religion, whether Catholics, Protestants, or Jews, who are swept by this current, are carried toward the abyss whither it is rushing. Those who reject the law of God which is proclaimed and enjoined by the authority of the church, do so because its moral or intellectual restraints are irksome, and they wish to be at liberty. In plain words, they wish to be free to sin, to follow the proclivity of our fallen nature to indulge in pride and concupiscence, without any fear of God before their eyes to disturb their peace. Therefore, they deny the authority of the church to bind their conscience to believe the doctrines and obey the moral precepts which she promulgates in the name of God. Their revolt is against the law itself and the sovereign authority of God. They sin against faith and against reason also; against the natural as well as the revealed law. They sin with the understanding as well as with the will, and their sin is one which goes to the root of all moral obligation and responsibility in the creature toward the Creator. It is an assertion of perfect individual liberty of thought and action, of independence and self-sovereignty; and as such an independence is completely incompatible with the existence of God, it is but a step to deny that he exists, or at least that we have any knowledge of his existence. Moreover, modern unbelief proceeds by the way of objections, difficulties, and doubts. It is sceptical in its principle; and one who rejects the authority of the church and of divine revelation on the principle of scepticism, easily rejects all philosophy and natural religion on the same principle, and runs down into pure materialism and atheism.
There are many persons in Europe, and some in this country, who have sunk into a state of avowed impiety and violent hostility to all religion which places them beyond the reach of every appeal to reason, conscience, or right feeling. We do not attempt to argue with such as these; but we suppose in those whom we address a condition of the mind and heart much less degenerate and hopeless. We suppose them to recognize the excellence and necessity of the private and social virtues, and to retain some intellectual and moral ideal in their minds which they cherish and venerate. They believe in truthfulness, honor, fidelity, honesty, true love, friendship, in the cultivation of knowledge and the fine arts, [pg 223] in all that can give decorum, refinement, and charm to domestic and social life, power, dignity, and splendor to political society. But all this is looked on as a spontaneous, natural growth, which finds its perfection and its end from and on this earth, and in this life, without any direct relation to God and an immortal life in another sphere of existence. Now, that such persons are intellectually and morally on a height which elevates them far above those who are wholly degraded in mind and character, we readily admit. But they are on the verge of a precipice. It is the black and awful abyss of atheism which yawns beneath them. And we invite them to look over the brink, and down into those dark depths, that they may consider deliberately whither their steps are leading them, before it is too late to retreat to a safer position.