I am aware that these fervid ejaculations are apt to be regarded by the light-minded as trivial, by the cold-hearted as indecorous, by the sanctimonious as even profane; but to the true philosopher, whether he be religious or not, they are pregnant with grave significance. For do not these irrepressible utterances burst forth from the very depths of the profound heart of the people? Are they not just as spontaneous and universal as is the belief in God itself? Are they not among the most genuine and impassioned words of mankind? Have they not a primordial vigor and vitality? Are they not supremely of that voice of the people which has been well called the voice of God? Thus when your Englishman instead of “Strange!” says “The Devil!” instead of “Wonderful!” cries “Good Heavens!” instead of “How startling!” exclaims “O Christ!” he does more than merely express his emotions, his surprise, his wonder, his amaze; he hallows it to the assertion of his belief in Satan, in the good kingdom of God, in Jesus; and, moreover, by the emotional gradation ranks with perfect accuracy the Devil lowest in the scale, the heavens higher, Christ the loftiest. When another shouts “God damn you!”(1) he not only condemns the evil of the person addressed; he also takes occasion to avow his own strong faith in God and God’s judgment of sinners. Similarly “God bless you!” implies that there is a God, and that from him all blessings flow. How vividly does the vulgar hyperbole “Infernally hot,” prove the general belief in hell-fire! And the phrase “God knows!” not merely declares that the subject is beyond human knowledge, but also that an all-wise God exists. Here in the West, as before stated, such brief expressions of faith, which are so much more sincere than long formularies repeated by rote in church, are quite as common as in your England. When one has sharply rebuked or punished another, he says “I gave him hell.” And that this belief in future punishment pervades all classes is proved by the fact that even a profane editor speaks of it as a matter of course. For the thermometer having been stolen from his sanctum, the said worthy editor announced that the mean cuss who took it might as well bring or send it back (no questions asked) for it could not be of any use to him in the place he was going to, as it only registered up to 212 degrees. The old notion that hell or Hades is located in the middle of the earth (which may have a scientific solution in the Plutonic theory that we dwell on the crust of a baked dumpling full of fusion and confusion) is obviously tallied by the miner’s assertion that his vein was true-fissure, reaching from the grass-roots down to hell. The frequent phrase “A God-damned liar,” “A God-damned thief,” recognise God as the punisher of the wicked. I have heard a man complain of an ungodly headache, implying first, the existence of God, and secondly, the fact that the Godhead does not ache, or in other words is perfect.