punishment, properly speaking, either in this world or in the world to
come. They become atheists.

You can never prove by reason that a woman ought to love her own child
better than the child of another woman. You cannot prove by reason that
she ought to love it at all. You may say no children would be reared if
mothers did not love their children, and even love them better than the
children of other mothers. But how will you prove that children _ought_
to be reared? Can you show that the mother will confer any advantage on
her child, or secure any advantage to herself, or any one else, by
rearing it? Can you prove that it will not be a torment to her,--that it
will not bring her to want, and shame, and an untimely death? The fact
is, a mother's love, a mother's partiality for her own child, is not a
matter of reason. The hen loves her chickens, the she bear loves its
cubs, the mother dog loves its whelps, and the ewe loves her lambs,
without any regard to reason. Their affections and preferences are
governed by something infinitely wiser than reason; infinitely higher,
at least, than any reason that _man_ can boast. And men love women, and
women love men, and men and women marry and form new families, not at
the bidding of reason, but under the influence of instincts or impulses
that come from a wisdom infinitely higher than the wisdom of the wisest
man on earth. And so it is with many of our beliefs. They are
instinctive; and reason, when it becomes reasonable enough to deserve
the name, will advise you to cherish those instinctive beliefs as your
life, in spite of all the infidel philosophy and reasoning on earth.

But even honest and well-disposed men of science sometimes form bad,
defective, or one-sided habits of thought and judgment unconsciously,
which render it impossible for them to do justice either to Nature or
Christianity as revelations of the character and government of God. And