Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again: A Life StoryBarker, Joseph
Religion
Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again: A Life Story
Barker, Joseph
Barker, Joseph, 1806-1875; Methodist Church -- Clergy -- Biography; Skepticism
Under the influence of this most rational, common-sense, practical Book,
what could I do but become a thoroughly practical preacher? What could I
do but drink in its blessed, god-like lessons, and make it the great
business of my life to teach them and preach them to my hearers, and
urge them on their consciences as the governing principles of their
hearts and lives?
The book of nature preaches the same practical Gospel as the Bible.
There is not a creature on earth that is not required to work. Birds,
beasts and insects must all labor, or die. The birds must build their
nests, and gather supplies of food for themselves and their young, or
they would all perish. The cattle must graze, or browse, or burrow, or
dive, or lack their needed supplies of food. The beaver must build its
dam, and the wolf must dig its hole, and both must labor for their daily
food. The bee must gather her wax, and build her cell, and fetch home
her honey, or starve. The ant must build her palace and look out for
food both for herself and her family. The spider must spin her thread,
and weave her web, and watch all day for her prey. All seek their food
from God, and obtain it at his hands as the reward of their industry.
Every organ in man's body has to work, or the body, with all its organs,
would die. The lungs must be continually breathing, and the heart
incessantly beating, and the blood perpetually running its mysterious
round, or the whole frame would perish. And the hands must work, and the
feet must walk, and the eyes must look, and the ears must listen, and
the tongue must talk. And the jaws must grind our food, and the stomach
digest it, and the liver and the spleen, and the brain and the bowels,
and the nerves and the glands must all co-operate, or we hasten to the
dust.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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