the manner of Thomas Paine, and for the benefit of
some of our professors and preachers, who do not know
the difference between an Atheist and a Deist, I will say
that a Deist is one who believes in one God, and rejects
all forms of so-called revealed religion. Mr. Brann loved
nature and when he looked upon it, he saw nature's God,
that with eternal fingers has written his message on earth
and sky, so that savage and civilized, Christian and Infidel
alike could read, that has by immutable and unvarying
laws, regulated the bloom of the flowers, the
course of the winds, and the fall of the leaf, as well as
the revolutions of the countless millions of worlds that
are ever speeding through the unmeasurable realms of
space. He believed that this mighty power, that men
call God, could perpetuate man in the hereafter as easily
as he had placed him here, and while he, like many others,
knew that all his hopes and faith did not furnish one
atom of real proof as to what lies beyond the gates of
death, still he hoped for the brighter and better life, and
when that beautiful smile overspread his face when he
died, those who beheld it felt that he had realized his
hopes, and in the shadowy realm that bounds the Stygian
river had met his little girl Inez, whose untimely death
at the age of barely 12 years, had worked such havoc
in his heart. Mr. Brann loved nature, not only when
the gorgeous god of day threw over earth and sky the
flashing strands of his golden hair, but in the night time
when all else was wrapped in the arms of sleep, the twin
sister of death; and the belated passer-by of his home
often saw the gleam of his cigar as he sat or walked