The adversary on purely intellectual grounds
would be awed into silence by its moral beauty, unless he were deficient
in reverence, purity, and love. It must therefore be said, distinctly,
although it cannot be argued at length, that this ground also appears to
me to be utterly untenable. I deny that it is impossible to speak the
truth without implying a falsehood; and I deny equally that it is
impossible to speak the truth without drying up the sources of our
holiest feelings. Those who maintain the affirmative of those
propositions appear to me to be the worst of sceptics, and they would
certainly reduce us to the most lamentable of dilemmas. If we cannot
develop our intellects but at the price of our moral nature, the case is
truly hard. Some such conclusion is hinted by Roman Catholics, but I do
not understand how any one raised under Protestant teaching should
regard it as any thing but cowardly and false. Let me endeavor in the
briefest possible compass to say why, as a matter of fact, the dilemma
seems to me to be illusory. What is it that Christian theology can now
do for us; and in what way does it differ from the teaching of free
thought?
The world, so far as our vision extends, is full of evil.
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