When all these and a thousand other questions have been answered, its history is not begun. Its elements are indestructible. The parts of which it is composed were never created--in some form, in some world, they always existed. Where were they when the earth was without form or void? To what astral system did the matter of this pebble once belong? Of what star did it form a part? Where was it before time on this planet began to be? If matter has existed for ever, this stone in its countless transmutations is a geological Wandering Jew of eternity. If we cannot tell the history of a single stone, who shall tell the history of God? If a poor pebble be a surpassing mystery, who shall understand the Deity? What must be the pretension, the presumption to infinite capacity of that man who, pausing not in reverent humility in the presence of these myriad miracles which crowd before him, yet tells us in confident and dogmatic tones, that he 'Looks _through_ Nature up to Nature's God?' For myself, I cleave rather to that more modest form of opinion which stands in mute wonder and listens with greedy ears to the secret tale of Nature, and waits with undying interest the revelations which science, or thought, or time, or death, shall make of these mysteries which surround us evermore. End of Project Gutenberg's The Limits Of Atheism, by George Jacob Holyoake