all,
impossible."[108] It is the confession of a _want_ of knowledge, the
expression of a _desire_ to know, the acknowledgment of the _duty_ of
worshipping him. Underlying all the forms of idol-worship the eye of
Paul recognized an influential Theism. Deep down in the pagan heart he
discovered a "feeling after God"--a yearning for a deeper knowledge of
the "unknown," the invisible, the incomprehensible, which he could not
despise or disregard. The mysterious _sentiments_ of fear, of reverence,
of conscious dependence on a supernatural power and presence
overshadowing man, which were expressed in the symbolism of the "sacred
objects" which Paul saw everywhere in Athens, commanded his respect. And
he alludes to their "devotions," not in the language of reproach or
censure, but as furnishing to his own mind the evidence of the strength
of their _religious instincts_, and the proof of the existence in their
hearts of that _native apprehension_ of the supernatural, the divine,
which dwells alike in all human souls.

[Footnote 108: Timaeus, ch. ix.]

The case of the Athenians has, therefore, a peculiar interest to every
thoughtful mind. It confirms the belief that religion is a necessity to
every human mind, a want of every human heart.[109] Without religion,
the nature of man can never be properly developed; the noblest part of
man--the divine, the spiritual element which dwells in man, as "the
offspring of God"--must remain utterly dwarfed. The spirit, the personal
being, the rational nature, is religious, and Atheism is the vain and
the wicked attempt to be something less than man. If the spiritual
nature of man has its normal and healthy development, he must become a
worshipper. This is attested by the universal history of man. We look
down the long-drawn aisles of antiquity, and everywhere we behold the
smoking altar, the ascending incense, the prostrate form, the attitude
of devotion. Athens, with her four thousand deities--Rome, with her
crowded Pantheon of gods--Egypt, with her degrading
superstitions--Hindostan, with her horrid and revolting rites--all
attest that the religious principle is deeply seated in the nature of
man. And we are sure religion can never be robbed of her supremacy, she
can never be dethroned in the hearts of men. It were easier to satisfy
the cravings of hunger by logical syllogisms, than to satisfy the
yearnings of the human heart without religion. The attempt of Xerxes to
bind the rushing f