d in his mind. Men did not like
to retain God in their knowledge, and so the idea of the Divine became
perverted, and in its first simplicity was lost, and the multitude
followed numberless shadows all illusory and vain. Still, there
lingered remnants and traditions of belief in a Divine Creator and
Governor which must have originated in such a primeval revelation as the
book of Genesis records. We find there the statement that God revealed
Himself to our first parents by direct intercourse. They heard and saw
and talked with God. They therefore knew of the existence of God by
personal perception, and the ideas they held regarding Him were founded
on His own manifestation of Himself.

Closely connected with this consciousness is the sense of responsibility
universally prevalent. There is a law written on the heart of every
rational human being, under the guidance of which he recognises a
distinction between good and evil, right and wrong. He possesses a
faculty to which the name of conscience has been given, that convicts
him of sin when he violates, and approves his conduct when he conforms
to, its dictates. However much different peoples and different ages may
be at variance in their particular ideas of what is right and what is
wrong, the conception itself has place in all of them. There are certain
fundamental notions as to what is just and what is unjust, what is
virtuous and what is vicious, that find universal or all but universal
acceptance. This power of distinguishing between right and wrong
constitutes man a moral being, and separates him by infinite distance
from the lower animals. To the beasts that perish there is nothing right
or wrong. They live altogether according to nature, and have no
responsibility. Man stands in a different relation to the Lawgiver who
bestowed on him the faculty of conscience and impressed on his soul a
conviction that he will have to give account for all his actions. The
Being to whom he must give account is God.

(_b_) (_Order_) Another ground of this belief is the order manifest
in the universe. There is a symmetry that pervades all material things
of which we have knowledge. Part is adapted to part; objects are
accurately adjusted to each other; "wheels within wheels" move smoothly;
every portion fits into and works in harmony with every other portion
without discord or jarring. It is unthinkable that these effects should
be due to chance or to a cause that is without intelli