Page:The Archko Volume (1896).djvu/206

202 "Men are led to God by their understanding and by their moral nature. On the first dawn of his faculties man experiences within him certain moral perceptions. This is right, meritorious, honorable; that is wrong, base, despicable, worthy of punishment. This moral nature he finds exists not only in himself, but in others. It is a universal attribute of man. It is not a fortuitous endowment. It is given to man by his Creator as the law of his action. I can come from no other source. But the moral power in man is only the faculty to see them because they exist. Then God sees them and they are realities, and He created both them and us. Our consciousness of the power to choose between the good and the bad creates within us a sense of responsibility to the being that made us.

"Connected with this idea of God, which seems to be necessary and universal, is that of a providence, an intelligence which not only made the world but governs it; which, therefore, knows the past, the present, and the future, and which, of course, observes not only all that is seen by mortal eyes, but likewise all that passes in the human mind. Men have seen that the general course of events is, that vice should be punished and virtue rewarded; vice, therefore, is regarded by God with displeasure; and as He now punishes it, so He will continue to do. As a good man now and ever must be the object of His approbation, and as God is infinite in power, the good man will be forever rewarded. Such are the natural convictions of mankind, which result from the