The theologians, finding themselves unable to answer the arguments that have been urged, resort to the old subterfuge--to the old cry that Agnosticism takes something of value from the life of man. Does the Agnostic take any consolation from the world? Does he blot out, or dim, one star in the heaven of hope? Can there be anything more consoling than to feel, to know, that Jehovah is not God--that the message of the Old Testament is not from the infinite? Is it not enough to fill the brain with a happiness unspeakable to know that the words, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," will never be spoken to one of the children of men? Is it a small thing to lift from the shoulders of industry the burdens of superstition? Is it a little thing to drive the monster of fear from the hearts of men?--North American Review, April, 1889. ERNEST RENAN. "Blessed are those Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger To sound what stop she please." ERNEST RENAN is dead. Another source of light; another force of civilization; another charming personality; another brave soul, graceful in thought, generous in deed; a sculptor in speech, a colorist in words--clothing all in the poetry born of a delightful union of heart and brain--has passed to the realm of rest. Reared under the influences of Catholicism, educated for the priesthood, yet by reason of his natural genius, he began to think. Forces that utterly subjugate and enslave the mind of mediocrity sometimes rouse to thought and action the superior soul. Renan began to think--a dangerous thing for a Catholic to do. Thought leads to doubt, doubt to investigation, investigation to truth--the enemy of all superstition. He lifted the Catholic extinguisher from the light and flame of reason. He found that his mental vision was improved. He read the Scriptures for himself, examined them as he did other books not claiming to be inspired. He found the same mistakes, the same prejudices, the same miraculous impossibilities in the book attributed to God that he found in those known to have been written by men. Into the path of reason, or rather into the highway, Renan was led by Henriette, his sister, to whom he pays a tribute that has the perfume of a perfect flower. "I was," writes Renan, "brought up by women and priests, and therein lies the whole explanation of my good qualities and of my defects." In most that he wrote is the tenderness of woman, only now and then a little touch of the priest showing itself, mostly in a reluctance to spoil the ivy by tearing down some prison built by superstition.