im as nothing less than a fool," cried Sand.

"The case is identically the same with moral education. Morality is an
edifice which a man must spend his life in laboring at. Religion is the
groundwork of this edifice. Moral training without religion is an
impossibility. It would be just as possible to build a house in the
air, as to train up a child morally without a religious belief, without
being convinced of the existence of a holy and just God."

"Facts prove the contrary," maintained Hans Shund. "Millions of persons
are moral who have no religious belief."

"That's an egregious mistake, sir," opposed the landholder. "The
repudiation of a Supreme Being and the violent extinction of the idea
of the Divinity in the breast are of themselves grave offences against
moral conscience. I grant you that, in the eyes of the public,
thousands of men pass for moral who have no faith in religion. But
public opinion is anything but a criterion of certainty when the moral
worth of a man is to be determined. A man's interior is a region which
cannot be viewed by the eye of the public. You know yourselves that
there are men who pass for honorable, moral, pure men, whose private
habits are exceedingly filthy and corrupt."

Hans Shund's color turned a palish yellow; the eyes of the chieftains
sank.

"Besides, gentleman, it would be labor lost to try to educate youth
independently of religion. Man is by his very nature a religious being.
It is useless to attempt to educate the young without a knowledge of
God and of revealed religion; to be able to do so you would previously
have to pluck out of their own breasts the sense of right and wrong,
and out of their souls the idea of God, which are innate in both. Were
the attempt made, however, believe me, gentlemen, the yearning after
God, alive in the human breast, would soon impel the generation brought
up independently of religion to seek after false gods. For this very
reason we know of no people in history that did not recognize and
worship some divinity, were it but a tree or a stone, that served them
for an object of adoration. In my opinion, it would be far more
indicative of genuine progress to adhere to the God of Christians, who
is incontestably holy, just, omnipotent, and kind, whilst to return to
the sacred oaks of ancient Germany or to adopt the fetichism of
uncivilized tribes would be a most monstrous reaction, the most
degrading barbarism."

The chieftains looked nonpl