of Tarsus and Plato of Athens: they have no more respect for the
opinions of Descartes and Leibnitz than for those of Pascal and Bossuet.
The great question of the day is to know whether our desire of truth is
a chimæra; whether our effort to reach the divine world is a spring into
the empty void. When the question relates to God, inasmuch as He is the
basis of reason no less than the object of faith, all the barriers which
exist elsewhere disappear: to defend faith is to defend reason; to
defend reason is to defend faith. The unbridled audacity of those who
deny fundamental truths is bringing ancient adversaries, for a moment at
least, to fight beneath the same flag. What they would rob us of, is not
merely this or that article of a definite creed, but all faith whatever
in Divine Providence, every hope which goes beyond the tomb, every look
directed towards a world superior to our present destinies. But take
courage. This flame lighted on the earth, and which is evermore directed
towards heaven, has passed safely through rougher storms than those
which now threaten it; it has shone brightly in thicker darkness than
that in which men are laboring so hard to enshroud it. It is not going
to be extinguished, be very sure, before the affected indifference of a
few wits of our day, and the haughty disdain of a few contemporary
journalists.

In a word, Gentlemen,--to take the idea of God as it has been handed
down to us, and to study its relation to the reason, the heart, and the
conscience of man,--this is my proposed method of proceeding. To show
you that this idea is truth, because it satisfies the conscience, the
heart, and the reason--this is the object I have in view. Of this object
I am sure you feel the importance: nevertheless, and that we may be more
alive to it still, I propose to you to sound with me the abysses of
sorrow and darkness which are involved in those terrible words--"without
God in the world."