(4) There are also a few wholly uncultured folk, who are more of gentlemen and ladies than our highly civilized peoples;—more truthful, honourable, and courteous;—while,
(5) Not a few are savages indeed!
These strictures serve as a reminder to add that by Theism is here intended the belief in a Supreme Being, the Father of Spirits, to Whom we shall give solemn account. But it is not meant to include some civilized superstitions, by means of which many men degrade and torment their fellows. Of such men we say, They too are savages indeed!
[174] Reid's Works, p. 751.
[175] Reid's Works, p. 743.
[176] Metaph. II. p. 530.
[177] The Friend, vol iii. p. 214. Ed. 1844.
[ak] The portrait of a lonely thinker searching out God has been painted in lively colours, as follows:—"O my friend, you would do me most grievous wrong, if you thought my heart empty of those feelings which make man the standing miracle of Nature. If your child fell into the river, would you stop to tell or think how you loved it, how dear and winsome and precious it was to you, how blank your home and bruised your heart would be without it? Or would you plunge into the stream in utter recklessness of your life, bear it swiftly out of the devouring flood, and then in silence strain the rescued little one to your bosom? Characters differ. It is mine to act, as well as to feel. What, do you imagine, prompts a thinker to give his days and nights to the rescue of man's faith in God, his heart-trust and moral inspiration and spiritual joy, when all these are put in jeopardy by the increase of a knowledge that is but half comprehended, even by those who in their own special lines are nobly increasing it? What lies back of the intense activity of his brain, as he toils over problems that wring the beads from his brow, gives up to the lonely pursuit of truth the hours that might be fertile of the prizes clutched after by the crowd, and turns his back on prizes that even he holds dear? What but a mighty hunger for God can explain this weary, unending search for Him? What else can explain the unthanked effort to make plain a path to Him that no man wants to travel?" American Index, Jan. 15, 1874.
[178] Butler's Sermons, p. 184 seq.
[179] The Soul, her Sorrows and her Aspirations, pp. 103, 104.