with evidence, it reasons upon the
consequences of his existence, upon the divine aims of His creation,
upon the terrestrial as well as eternal destinies of His creatures, upon
the nature of the homage and adoration that God expects, upon his moral
laws, upon the public and private duties which he imposes on his
creatures by their consciences, upon the liberty He leaves them; so that
with the sufferings of conflict He may give to them the merits and the
prize of virtue. Thus in man does the instinct of God become Faith. Thus
man can speak the greatest word that has ever been spoken upon the earth
or in the stars, the word which fills the worlds by itself alone, the
word which commenced with them, and which can only end with them;--

"I believe in God!"

IV.

It is in this sense, my friends, that I say to you, "I believe in
God."

But, once having said this word with the universe of beings and of
worlds, and blessed this invisible God for having rendered himself
visible, sensible, evident, palpable, adorable in the mirror of weak
human intelligence, made gradually more and more pure, I reason with
myself on the best worship to be rendered Him in thought and action.
Let me show how, by this reasoning, I am forcibly drawn to the love of
the People.

I say to myself, then, "Who is this God? Is he a vain _notion_, which
has no effect on the thoughts and acts of man, his creature; who
inspires nothing in him; who gives him no commands; who imposes nothing
upon him; who does not reward, and who does not punish?--No! God is
not a mere _notion_, an idea, an evidence;--God is a _law_,--the living
law, the supreme law, the universal law, the eternal law. Because God
is a law on high, he is a duty on the earth; and when man says, 'I
believe in God,' he says, at the same time, 'I believe in my duty
towards God,--I believe in my duty towards man.' God is a government!"

And what are these duties? They are of three sorts:--

_Duty towards God_,--that is to say, the duty of developing, as much
as possible, my intelligence and my reason, to arrive at the purest
idea and the highest worship of the Supreme Being, by whom and for
whom all is, all exists:--_Religion_.

_Private Duties_,--that is to say, the exact and tender discharge of
all sentiments to which form has been given, either in written or
unwritten laws, which bind me to those, to whom, in the order of
nature, I hold most closely,--the nearest to myself in the