But the priests of the Deity of
Smallpox were not disconcerted; only they deposed the Image of their
discomfited Goddess, and petitioned my friend for some emblem of himself
which they might install in her stead.
We who are fortunate enough to live in this comparatively enlightened
century hardly realize how our ancestors suffered from their belief in the
existence of mysterious and malevolent beings; how their life was
embittered and overshadowed by these awful apprehensions.
As men, however, have risen in civilization, their religion has risen with
them; they have by degrees acquired higher and purer conceptions of divine
power.
We are only just beginning to realize that a loving and merciful Father
would not resent honest error, not even perhaps the attribution to him of
such odious injustice. Yet what can be clearer than Christ's teaching on
this point. He impressed it over and over again on his disciples. "The
letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."
"If," says Ruskin, "for every rebuke that we titter of men's vices, we put
forth a claim upon their hearts; if, for every assertion of God's demands
from them, we should substitute a display of His kindness to them; if side
by side, with every warning of death, we could exhibit proofs and promises
of immortality; if, in fine, instead of assuming the being of an awful
Deity, which men, though they cannot and dare not deny, are always
unwilling, sometimes unable, to conceive; we were to show them a near,
visible, inevitable, out all-beneficent Deity, whose presence makes the
earth itself a heaven, I think there would be fewer deaf children sitting
in the market-place.
Pages:
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328