The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the SouthwestSparks, W. H. (William Henry)
History
The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest
Sparks, W. H. (William Henry)
Georgia -- History -- 1775-1865; Southwest, Old -- History; United States -- Biography
"To the unlettered mind, it was," answered the young gentleman;
"because the imagination could only be aided by the material presented
to the natural eye. Science opens the eye of faith. It teaches that the
sun is only the instrument, and faith looks beyond for the Creator. To
such the Indian's faith cannot be the true one. The ignorance of one
sees God in the instrument, and his thoughts clothe him with the power
of the Creator, and his heart worships God in sincerity, and to him it
is the true faith. But to the educated, scientific man, who knows the
offices of the sun, it appears as it is, only the creature of the
unseen, unknown God, and to this God he lifts his adoration and
prayers, and to him this is the true faith."
"So, my philosopher, you believe, whatever lifts the mind to worship
God is the true faith?"
"You put it strongly, Miss, and I will answer by a question. If in
sincerity we invoke God's mercy, can the means that prompt the heart's
devotion, reliance, and love, be wrong? His magnitude and perfection
are a mystery to the untutored savage: he knows only what he sees. The
earth to him, (as it was to the founders and patriarchs of our own
faith,) is all the world. He has no idea that it is only one, and a
small one of a numerous family, and can conceive only that the sun
rules his world; gives life and death to everything upon the earth--but
this inspires love and reverence for God. The scientific man sees in
the sun only an attractive centre, and sees space filled with
self-illuminating orbs, and reasoning from the known to the unknown, he
believes these centres of attraction to planetary families, and the
imagination stretches away through space filled with centres and
revolving worlds, and each centre with its dependents revolving around
one great centre, and this great centre he believes is God. His idea is
only one step beyond the Indian's, and has only the same effect: it
leads the heart to depend on and worship God."
"You are a heretic, and must like a naughty boy be made to read your
Bible and go to Sunday-school, and be lectured and taught the true
faith. Fy! fy! shall the heathen go to heaven? Where is the provision
for him in the Bible? What are we to do with missions? If this be true,
there is no need that we should be sending good men and dear, pious
women to convert the Chinese, the Feejees, and the poor Africans so
benighted that their very color is black, and the Australians, and New
Georgians, to be roasted and eaten by the cannibals there. If they
worship God in sincerity, you say that is all?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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