O
The Grace and Glory of the Truth, ‘living’ or earth floor a s ‘a vale of and Physical Foundation of Human Wordsworth and Goethe, and feel
tears,’ in which ‘the state of pro- Life. To compare that position the joy, too deep for tears or laugh-
by T. B. WAKEMAN.
bation’ hid to be passel before with the old horror from which we ter, that springs from the certainty
dropping into the excruciating tor- have escaped, is of its self sufficient that the earth, never created nor
We felt sorry for the “ Rev.” J. ments of eternal hell, in the base-
to inspire a continuous satisfaction deluged, and never to be burned,
P. Bland when we read the para- went; or flitting to the worse silly and joy unspeakable. Let us hear
is the blessed Mother of us
graphs we reprint about the “Grace inanity of an eternal heaven juBt
no more about the grace and glory all, ever ready and willing
and
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turn
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Professor
of
needs,
wishes
and
joys. Thus as
away, and when he adds: “I feel been a dirty, bloody swauip, enliv­
Biology and Sociology, that is, the we adjust ourselves to Nature it is
the dreary contrast between that ened by mvriads of wriggling
combined departments of animal
dear faith which once was mine human beings trying to reach some and human life on our planet. To a permissible fiction and figure of
and the gloomy shadows of that hope or a “Nirvana” of practical the question: How does the grace speech to gay that she, like the
which now has forced itself upon non-existence. In Asia and Africa and glory of the old lot and fate of Earth, is transposed into our Mother
and Nurse. Now we have come to
me—whose God, if such its Infinite that is very much the state of man contrast with the new, we get
add to this the modern fact and
and Eternal Energy can be called, things today, because there the this reply:
conception of the ever-growing,
is void alike of evil as of good, of old wor,d and the consequent o,d
“You can answer the question by living, and ever more powerful, and
love as of hate; . . . while faiths still impart their ‘grace and considering how a mass of wretches now almost Almighty Humanity,
man is hut an evanescent bubble,” ' g|orys _ of unSpeakable mi8ery.
condemned to death, or a fate worse lying between us and the Inorganic
etc. Now, these may not be the
<(By way of contrast, the New
than death, bv a tyrant ‘for his World. Its collective will is ever be­
learned author’s own gentiments, World of Science gives us the re­
own glory’ would feel should they coming more civilized and béné­
but those he has properly attrib­ ality of Bruno’s ‘Infinite Space lit
uted to his aged Professor who, by innumerable sun worlds.’Among learn that a mighty catastrophe ficient. The longing for the best of
and revolution had occurred, by old barbarian Gods, and all that
Moses like, had reached the Mount them our sun has a fine position
which the despot had been deposed they were supposed to be able or
Pisgah between The Old and The on the borders of the Milky Way
and the prison walls blown into in­ willing to do is now to long for the
New—the Mount which age forbids the galaxy of glory. Nor is our
finity without hurting one of them, shadow after the substance has
him to leave to explore and realize planet’s place in our solar system
would they not rejoice and be ex­ come. All of the longings that
the Promised Land he dimly fore­ in anywise despicable. We are
ceeding glad? Would they not used to go out to the Heavens, Gods,
sees for others.
not melted like Mercury nor frozen loçk out and up with unspeakable and Saviors of old, are met and
Yet these pessimistic views of the like Neptune. We are iu the tem­
delight over the ‘Sun and Starlit fulfilled a thousand-fold by the new
New World, Life and Hope are perate zone of planets, where we
Hall of Earth’ now sure to be the relations’ by which Science, the
common, and likely to be taken a9 live on a splendid rotary observa­
eternal home of their race, in real Revelation, has related us to
the Author’s. We believe them to tory, daily ‘alternating,’ as Faust
which all their love and treasure the Infinite Cosmos, the Beauty of
be just the reverse of the truth, and opens by saying, in what Shelley
can surely be made continuous for­ Order; to the ever-moving, ever-
profoundly regretable. The fact is calls ‘that astonishing chorus’—
ever! If it is said that a few of the variegated Paradise of Earth aud
just exactly otherwise. Those who A lte rn a tin g P aradise brig h tn ess
poor, miserable creatures might be Nature; to the glorious social joy of
are “out in the clear” of the New
W ith deep an d dreadful n ig h t!
saved by reason of the voluntary neighbor, friend, family; and to the
World of Scieuce and Humanity And what an observatory! Each
sacrifice of the only Son of the Des­ mutual homage, love and joy of the
are the healthiest, strongest, best, year we are sweeping around in a
pot, and so taken into his ‘king sexes, which was never knowable,
most useful, satisfied and joyous sun orbit 558 millions of miles.
dom’ to share his ‘glory’ by bis
people that are, or ever have been, Nor is there likely to be eternal ‘grace,’ the answer is, that the nor experienced in its higher phases,
on this planet. Those old, ignor­ sameness in these daily and yearly grace to a few by the murder of the until modern Science and Soci­
ant, superstitious, medieval bar­ travels, for the sun is carrying us innocent son is manifest barbarism ology revealed the Truth about con­
barians called “Saints” are not towards Lyra at the rate of ten that could only be accepted by tinuous life, and love and hope.”
Q.—But we don’t want to die, we
comparable with the true ladies miles a second, or 300 millions of savages without a feeling of horror.
and gentlemen—the true nobility— miles a year, and Lyra is in her Nor could there be a ‘Heaven’ to want to be immortal and to have
who have given us the New Era travels, too, so there will be no col­ human beings when the majority those joys infinitely increased for
and its “dominant philosophy” of lision. (See Prof. Newcomb, in of the race, including, perhaps, our ever.
T his world is all a fleeting show
Science. Take them by the hun­ McClure’s Magazine, July, 1899.) dearest ones, are broiling in Hell
F o r m a n ’s illusion g iv en ;
dred or thousand from Shakes­
The
sm iles of joy, th e tea rs of woe
Q,—Well, Professor, but you The modern touch that makes the
D
eceitful
sh in e, deceitful flow:
peare and Goethe down to Comte know that our whole solar system whole world ‘a kin’ makes a Hell
T h e re ’s n o th in g tru e b u t H eaven !?
and Spencer, Darwin and Huxley, must return to “star mist” in a few of Heaven unless all are in it. The
A.—“ Very well; where are you
and they are the flower of the millions of years?-
joyful Heaven, with Hell as its to find your Heaven? Now, we
human race. They had the hard
A.—“Nonsense! It is time that real foundation or corner stone, is
trials of revolutions in their several such old echoes of Theology were a contradiction to all advanced have found out that this world is
not an illusion or fleeting show,
departments, but they did their out of our school books, to say peoples.”
work manfully and more than hap­ nothing of our scientific philoso­ Q.—But how will they be happy but the eternal reality of which we
pily; they were blissfully triumph phies, and especially Herbert Spen without the special providences of are a creating part. Our smiles
and tears are no longer deceitful,
ant, and were joyous in the assured
Aa Pro(e98or8 Lockyer and “our Heavenly Father?”
but the sunshine and shadows of
victories which they foresaw. How Proctor say, the meteoric hypo­
A.—“Why, by learning that the
far behind this age that regretful thesis has displaced it. As Prof. impartial and reliable certainty of he dawn of the E arthly P aradise ,
Professor is may be seen by con Heysinger says, ‘There has not, so our ‘Heavenly Law’ is in every which Science is substituting in
trasting bis views with the views ;
b(!e„ ob8erved in
the heavens respect far better than any favor­ flaee of ‘Heaven,’ which of all
of the professors of a Liberal Uni- , any ga8eou8 nebula wbicb lendB tbe itism, or change of a knowable hing- is not true, but which be­
came our inconceivable dream, as
Ter8i‘i-
I slightest support to the Nebular order.
soon as Galileo’s telescope opened
Let us begin such an inquiry Hypothesis.’ And as Prof. Ball
“The World itself a God of know­
he sky. The substance of that
with the Professor of Cosmology, says, ‘The Nebular Hypothesis is able, invariable, correlative law,
dream is here , the pleasure of its
that is, of Astronomy, Physics and emphatically a speculation.
It pursuant to which we can certainly
creation and anticipation is the
C hemistry. This would be his reply: cannot be demonstrated by obser- modify events and phenomena to
greatest of joys. The joy, ‘grace
“Where the ‘grace, glory’ and vation, nor established by mathe- our own advantage, is a well- and glory’ of nothingness is what?
joy in that old, flat, firmament- matical calculation.’ »Such a meta- spring of everlasting joy and satis­ “Please to answer that before you
foofed world may be, it seems to physical hypothesis should no long- faction. By that fact Science has ask more.”
no^ impossible to find in contrast er masquerade as verified Science, called into play the “cosmic emo­
with the sun and starlit, infinite As long as attraction balances re- tions” which have given a higher
Cosmic-Universe that Science has pulsion, inflow equals radiation, and more joyful sympathy with
For sixteen centuries of faith and
revealed. What happiness, glory and no limit is found to time and Nature than the old faiths could trust, our ancestors tried to reach
or joy could there be to a race of space, you may settle down to work ever begin to think of. Read the Heaven by abandoning their place
slaves created in a ‘three-story with the grace, glory and joy of concluding pages of Prof. Tyndall’s in nature, and we can now estimate
tenement house’ of a world, a few endless progress gaining its illimit- Book on Light; turn to the Nature- the costs of the experiments.—
thousand miles in extent; with its , able victory, upon the Astronomical | inspiration in Shelley, Byron, [F. L. Oswald.
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