which is a good name.  It signifies that a man is positive he knows more about the future state than God!  Upon his death-bed this Monsieur Littre,—­although he had been the means of sending thousands of other souls before their Maker, rebellious and unredeemed—­this same Monsieur Littre dared not to meet God with his Positivism on his soul, and embraced the offices of the Church with great relief.  Men, before entering upon a course which flings away the only hope a man has,

SHOULD LOOK WELL TO IT

that they know what they are doing.  I wandered in the terror-stricken streets of burned Chicago.  The multitudes—­nearly two hundred thousand—­were eating in gratitude; the mothers with babes were under shelter.  Was the unburned temple of the atheist open?  Oh, no!  He had none.  Who was cutting the meats and breaking the bread?  The wives and daughters of the parishes which had been spared from the hot flames.  It was a solemn lesson.  I said:  “I will not, Colonel Ingersoll, throw away the hope I have.”  By their works shall ye know them!  ’Tis as true upon the field of blood as in the track of fire, but we must pass on.  “When I was young,” said

THE GREAT NEWTON,

the ornament of his race, “I was sure of many things; there are only two things of which I am sure now:  one is that I am a miserable sinner; and the other, that Jesus Christ is an all-sufficient savior.”  The closing pages of Dr. Johnson’s works are filled with simple little prayers to his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  “I have lived long enough to know what I did not at one time believe—­that no society can be upheld in happiness and honor without the sentiment of religion.”  This is the language of La Place, the author of “La Mecanique Celeste,” one of the greatest books of the world.  He spoke from real experience.  He had seen religion “abolished by law.”  He had seen the “worship of Reason” established with the decapitation of seven thousand innocent citizens of France.  He had heard one of the apostles of Reason arise in the Constituent Assembly and demand two hundred and ninety thousand corpses instead of seven thousand.  Then this man who had grasped the machinery of the heavens, who had shown the absolute accuracy of Newton’s great discovery, wrote, in the same spirit of absolute knowledge:  “I have lived long enough to know what I did not once believe.”  Magnificent testimony!  Almost as valuable as the teachings of our own hearts!  The same statement comes from

THE ROCK OF ST. HELENA.

Victor Hugo, with a mind like that of Shakspeare, says:  “I believe in the sublimity of prayer.”  “If we traverse the world,” says Plutarch, “it is possible to find cities without walls, without letters, without Kings, without wealth, without coin, without schools, without theatres; but a city without a temple, or that practiceth not worship, prayers, and the like, no one ever saw.”  “Wonderful!” cries Montesquieu, “that the Christian religion, which seems to have no other object than the felicity of another life, should also constitute the happiness of this!”