CHAPTER XI.

MORAL GOVERNMENT.--ITS NATURE, CONDITION, METHOD, AND END 366

"To such readers as have reflected on man's life; who understand that for man's well-being Faith is properly the one thing needful; how with it martyrs, otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and the cross; and without it worldlings puke up their sick existence by suicide in the midst of luxury: to such it will be clear that for a pure moral nature, the loss of religious belief is the loss of every thing.

"All wounds, the crush of long-continued destitution, the stab of false friendship and of false love, all wounds in thy so genial heart, would have healed again had not its life-warmth been withdrawn.

"Well mayest thou exclaim, 'Is there no God, then; but at best an absentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first Sabbath, at the outside of his universe and seeing it go?' 'Has the word Duty no meaning; is what we call Duty no Divine messenger and guide, but a false earthly phantasm made up of desire and fear?' 'Is the heroic inspiration we name Virtue but some passion; some bubble of the blood, bubbling in the direction others profit by?' I know not; only this I know, If what thou namest Happiness be our true aim, then are we all astray. 'Behold, thou art fatherless, outcast, and the universe is--the Devil's.'"--CARLYLE.

THE THEISTIC

CONCEPTION OF THE WORLD.