rt. They exercised some restraint
on human wilfulness and passion. They have directed, however imperfectly,
the human conscience toward the right. To assume that they are wholly evil
is disrespectful to human nature. It supposes man to be the easy and
universal dupe of fraud. But these religions do not rest on such a sandy
foundation, but on the feeling of dependence, the sense of accountability,
the recognition of spiritual realities very near to this world of matter,
and the need of looking up and worshipping some unseen power higher and
better than ourselves. A decent respect for the opinions of mankind
forbids us to ascribe pagan religions to priestcraft as their chief
source.

And a reverence for Divine Providence brings us to the same conclusion.
Can it be that God has left himself without a witness in the world, except
among the Hebrews in ancient times and the Christians in modern times?
This narrow creed excludes God from any communion with the great majority
of human beings. The Father of the human race is represented as selecting
a few of his children to keep near himself, and as leaving all the rest to
perish in their ignorance and error. And this is not because they are
prodigal children who have gone astray into a far country of their own
accord; for they are just where they were placed by their Creator. HE "has
determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation."
HE has caused some to be born in India, where they can only hear of him
through Brahmanism; and some in China, where they can know him only
through Buddha and Confucius. The doctrine which we are opposing is; that,
being put there by God, they are born into hopeless error, and are then
punished for their error by everlasting destruction. The doctrine for
which we contend is that of the Apostle Paul, that God has "determined
beforehand the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord,
IF HAPLY THEY MAY FEEL AFTER HIM AND FIND HIM." Paul teaches that "all
nations dwelling on all the face of the earth" may not only seek and feel
after God, but also FIND him. But as all living in heathen lands are
heathen, if they find God at all, they must find him through heathenism.
The pagan religions are the effort of man to feel after God. Otherwise we
must conclude that the Being without whom not a sparrow falls to the
ground, the Being who never puts an insect into the air or a polyp into
the water without providing it with