me, Satan: it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and
him only shalt thou serve.'

And therefore I tell you here--as the Church has told Christian
people in all ages--that if any of you have any fancy for such
follies, any belief in charms and magic, any belief that you can have
your fortunes told by astrologers, gipsies, or such like, you must go
back to your Bible, and learn better the first text in it. 'In the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' God's is the
kingdom, and the power, and the glory, of all things visible and
invisible; all the world round us, with its wonderful secrets, is
governed, from the sun over our heads, to the smallest blade of grass
beneath our feet, by God, and by God alone, and neither evil spirit
nor magician has the smallest power over one atom of it; and our
fortunes, in likewise, do not depend on the influences of stars or
planets, ghosts or spirits, or anything else: but on ourselves, of
whom it is written, that God shall judge every man according to his
works.

Even now, in these very days, many good people are hardly able, it
seems to me, to believe with their whole hearts that God made heaven
and earth. They half believe it: but their faith is weak; and when
it is tried, they grow frightened, and afraid of truth. This it is
which makes so many good people afraid of what is now called Science-
-of all new discoveries about the making of this earth, and the
powers and virtues of the things about us; afraid of wonders which
are become matters of course among us, but of which our forefathers
knew little or nothing. They are afraid lest these things should
shake people's faith in the Bible, and in Christianity; lest men
should give up the good old faith of their forefathers, and fancy