of sin and error which exists of necessity in that world-wide multiform
Communion,--but going to the proof of this one point, that its system is
in no sense dishonest, and that therefore the upholders and teachers of
that system, as such, have a claim to be acquitted in their own persons
of that odious imputation.

* * * * *

Starting then with the being of a God, (which, as I have said, is as
certain to me as the certainty of my own existence, though when I try to
put the grounds of that certainty into logical shape I find a difficulty
in doing so in mood and figure to my satisfaction,) I look out of myself
into the world of men, and there I see a sight which fills me with
unspeakable distress. The world seems simply to give the lie to that
great truth, of which my whole being is so full; and the effect upon me
is, in consequence, as a matter of necessity, as confusing as if it
denied that I am in existence myself. If I looked into a mirror, and did
not see my face, I should have the sort of feeling which actually comes
upon me, when I look into this living busy world, and see no reflexion
of its Creator. This is, to me, one of those great difficulties of this
absolute primary truth, to which I referred just now. Were it not for
this voice, speaking so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should
be an atheist, or a pantheist, or a polytheist when I looked into the
world. I am speaking for myself only; and I am far from denying the real
force of the arguments in proof of a God, drawn from the general facts
of human society and the course of history, but these do not warm me or
enlighten me; they do not take away the winter of my desolation, or make
the buds unfold and the leaves grow within me, and my moral being
rejoice. The sight of the world is nothing else than the prophet's
scroll, full of "lamentations, and mourning, and woe."

To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history,
the many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual
alienation, their conflicts; and then their ways, habits, governments,
forms of worship; their enterprises, their aimless courses, their random
achievements and acquirements, the impotent conclusion of long-standing
facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a superintending design, the
blind evolution of what turn out to be great powers or truths, the
progress of things, as if from unreasoning elements, not towards final