{51} But this is not all. Most sciences are not only uncertain, but also insufficient. We demand the knowledge of truths of which science is profoundly ignorant. Of all the great problems and precious interests which belong to me as a mortal or immortal being, science knows nothing. I ask her whence I came. She points to her pinions stretched over the abyss of primeval fire, her eyes blinded by its awful glare, and remains silent. I inquire what I am; but the strange and questioning _I_ is a mystery which she can neither analyze nor measure. I tell her of the voice of conscience within--she never heard it and does not pretend to understand it. I tell her of my anxieties about the future--she is learned only in the past. I inquire how I may be happy hereafter--but happiness is not a scientific term, and she cannot even tell me how to be happy here! Poor, blind science! Further still, all our dearest interests lie beyond the domains of physical science, in the regions of faith. Science treats of things--faith is confidence in persons. Take away the persons and of what value are the things? The world becomes at once a vast desert, a dreary solitude. I can live, and love, and be happy without science; but not without companionship whose bond is faith. In its sunshine alone can happiness grow. It is faith sends man out in the morning to his work, nerves his arms through the toils of the day, brings him home in the evening, gathers the children around the table, inspires the oft-repeated efforts of the little prattler to ascend his parent's knee, clasps the chubby arms {52} around his neck, looks with the most confiding innocence into his eye and puts forth the little hand to catch his bread and share his cup. Undoubting faith is happiness even here below. Need we marvel, then, that man must be converted from his pride of empty, barren science, and casting himself with all his powers into the arms of faith, become as a little child before he can enter into the kingdom of heaven? * * * * * CHAPTER IV. DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF? MANIFESTATIONS OF POWER--MOUNTAIN CHAINS--PHENOMENA THE EFFECT OF CAUSE--EXTENT OF UNIVERSE--MANIFESTATIONS OF DESIGN--THE HUMAN EYE--MATTER INERT--DID THE PAVING-STONES MAKE THEMSELVES?--THEORIES OF BUFFON--OF DR. OLBERS--HISTORY DECLARES GOD'S GOVERNMENT. "Nature is but the name of an effect whose cause is God."--COWPER. "The infidel astronomer is mad."--HERSCHEL.