It is admitted, then, by the Secularist himself,--that there _may be_ a God,--that there may be evidence of His existence,--that it may yet be discovered in the progress of natural reason,--and that to deny any one of these possibilities would be to assume "infallibility," or to arrogate "infinite knowledge as the ground of disproof." Now, we humbly conceive that there is enough in these admissions, if not to disarm the Secular polemic, yet to shut up every seriously reflecting man, not, perhaps, to the instant recognition of a Divine Being, but certainly to the duty of earnest, patient, and persevering inquiry. It was with this view that both Chalmers and Foster penned those powerful passages which seem to have left some impression on the mind even of Mr. Holyoake, not for the purpose, as he seems to imagine, of confounding Atheism with Anti-theism, but for the very opposite purpose of discriminating between the two, so as to show that, the one being impossible, the _other_ can afford no security against the possible truth of Religion. And every word of warning which they convey should tell with powerful effect on Mr. Holyoake's conscience, after the admissions which he has deliberately made, especially when he is engaged in the cheerless task of undermining the faith of multitudes in their "Father which is in heaven." Dr. Chalmers devotes a chapter of his "Natural Theology" to illustrate "the duty which is laid upon men by the _possibility_ or even the _imagination_ of a God." He does not overlook, on the contrary he founds upon, the distinction between Skeptical and Dogmatic Atheism. "Going back," he says, "to the very earliest of our mental conceptions on this subject, we advert first to the distinction, in point of real and logical import, between unbelief and disbelief. There being no ground for affirming that there is a God, is a different proposition from there being ground for affirming that there is no God.... The Atheist does not labor to demonstrate that there is no God; but he labors to demonstrate that there is no adequate proof of there being one. He does not positively affirm the position, that God is not; but he affirms the lack of evidence for the position, that God is. Judging from the tendency and effect of his arguments, an Atheist does not appear positively to refuse that a God may be; but he insists that He has not discovered Himself, whether by the utterance of His voice in audible revelation, or by the impress of His hand upon visible nature. His verdict on the doctrine of a God is only that it is not proven; it is not, that it is disproven. He is but an Atheist: he is not an Anti-theist."