if they had always employed these media
they would have always possessed this idea. "The wrath of God," he says,
"is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of
men who hold the truth in unrighteousness; _because_ that which may be
known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shewed it unto them. _For_
the invisible things of him, even his eternal power and Godhead, are
clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood by the
things that are made, so that they are without excuse; _because_ that
when they _knew_ God, they glorified him not as God" (Rom. i. 18-21).
From this, it appears that the mind of man has not kept what was
committed to its charge. It has not employed the moral instrumentalities,
nor elicited the moral ideas, with which it has been furnished. And,
notice that the apostle does not confine this statement to those who live
within the pale of Revelation. His description is unlimited and
universal. The affirmation of the text, that "when man knew God he
glorified him not as God," applies to the Gentile as well as to the Jew.
Nay, the primary reference of these statements was to the pagan world. It
was respecting the millions of idolaters in cultivated Greece and Rome,
and the millions of idolaters in barbarous India and China,--it was
respecting the whole world lying in wickedness, that St. Paul remarked:
"The invisible things of God, even his eternal power and Godhead, are
clearly seen from the creation of the world down to the present moment,
being understood by the things that are made; _so that they are without
excuse_."

When Napoleon was returning from his campaign in Egypt and Syria, he was
seated one night upon the deck of the vessel, under the open canopy of
the heavens, surrounded by his captains and generals. The conversation
had taken a skeptical direction, and most of the party had combated the
doctrine of the Divine existence. Napoleon had sat silent and musing,
apparently taking no interest in the discussion, when suddenly raising
his hand, and pointing at the crystalline firmament crowded with its
mildly shining planets and its keen glittering stars, he broke out, in
those startling tones that so often electrified a million of men:
"Gentlemen, who made all that?" The eternal power and Godhead of the
Creator are impressed by the things that are made, and these words of
Napoleon to his atheistic captains silenced them. And the same impression
is made the