SAYS GEORGE WASHINGTON: 

“Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion.”  “Religion is a necessary, an indispensable element in any great human character,” says Daniel Webster.  “Nothing,” says Gladstone, “can be hostile to religion which is agreeable to justice.”  “It is the property of the religious spirit,” admits Emerson, “to be the most refining of all influences.  The writers against religion,” says Edmund Burke, “whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.”  “I fear God,” says Saadi, “and next to God, I chiefly fear him who fears him not.”  “Space is the statue of God,” cries Joubert.  “Truth is his body and light his shadow,” says Plato.

There is almost a revelation of God in the cries upward to Him, of some of his human souls.  Says Wordsworth: 

Thou who didst wrap the cloud
Of infancy around us, that Thyself,
Therein with our simplicity awhile
Mightst hold on earth communion undisturbed;
Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,
Or from its deathlike void, with punctual care,
And touch as gentle as the morning light,
Restor’st us daily—­
Thou, Thou alone. 
Art everlasting!

The poet Young, driven by sorrow to God’s foot-stool, addresses his
Creator in the same nobility of language: 

          Thou, who didst put to flight

Primeval silence, when the morning stars,
Exulting, shouted o’er the rising ball;
O Thou! whose word from solid darkness struck
That spark the sun, strike wisdom from my soul;
My soul which flies to Thee, her trust, her treasure,
As misers to their gold, while others rest.

“Come unto me, ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”  Therefore, accept this boon.  Take your own child by the hand, and pray, and pray: 

     The way is long, my Father! and my soul
       Longs for the rest and quiet of the goal;
     While yet I journey through this weary land,
       Keep me from wandering, Father, take my hand.

THE ATHEIST

     Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place,
     (Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism,
     Sailing on obscene wings, athwart the noon,
     Drops his blue-fringed lids and holds them close,
     And hooting at the glorious Sun in heaven,
     Cries out:  “Where is it?”—­Coleridge.

The laugh of the foolish infidel and the sneer of the solemn atheist are abroad in the land.  The awful draught they hold to the lips of humanity is well honeyed with some of the adjuncts of religion itself, else the perilous cup would be rejected.  Let us see how the atheist secures his victim, for he is never content to enjoy alone the extravagances of his folly.  I have noticed that when a Democratic editor receives dispatches containing news of a Republican