the worship and the love of God, and feel that
somehow it is impious for them to consider the question whether their
intellectual theories are correct or not; and so the world stands by
the ideas of the past, and opposes anything like finer and nobler ideas
that offer themselves for consideration. And not only in the religious
field; but these religious prejudices stand in the way of accepting
truths outside the sphere of religion. For example, when Darwin
published his book, "The Origin of Species," the greatest opposition it
met with was from the religious world. Why? Had they considered
Darwin's arguments to find out whether they were true? Nothing of the
kind. But they flew to the sudden conclusion that somehow or other the
religion of the world was in danger, if Darwinism should prove to be
true. And it is very curious to note I wonder how long the world will
keep on repeating that serio-comic blunder from the very beginning it
has been the same; almost every single step that the world proposes to
take in advance is opposed by the constituted religious authorities of
the time because they assume at the outset that the theories which they
have been holding are divinely authorized and infallible, and that it
is not only untrue, this other statement, but that it is impious as
well.

The doubt, then, that springs from preconceived ideas is not only
unjustifiable, but may be dangerous and wrong.

Then there is another kind of doubt against which you should beware.
There are certain doubts that, if accepted and acted on, stand in the
way of the creation of the most magnificent facts in the world. Take as
an illustration of what I mean: when Napoleon, a young man in Paris,
was asked to take command of the guard of the city, suppose he had
doubted, questioned, distrusted, his own ability; suppose he had been
timid and afraid, the history of the world would have been changed by
that one doubt. Take another illustration. At the opening of our war or
in the months just preceding the beginning of active hostilities the
man then occupying the presidential chair had no faith, no faith in
himself, no faith in the perpetuity of our institutions, no faith in
the people; and so he sat doubting, while everything crumbled in pieces
around him. And then appeared a man in whom the people had little faith
at first, and who had no great faith perhaps in his own ability; but he
had infinite faith in God, faith in right, faith in the peop