best I can. But the fear of such men will not disturb
me much. Their power is only for a time. "Thus far,
but no further," quote Death to the tyrant; and I am
free.
But to fear God whom I cannot escape, whom death cannot defend me from, that would indeed be most dreadful. Irreligion is the fear of God. It takes two forms. In atheism, the form of denial, you fear without naming the object of horror, perhaps calling it Chance or Fate; in superstition, the form of affirmation, you fear Him by name, believe and tremble. Superstition and atheism are fellow-trunks from the same root of bitterness. I would as soon worship in the wigwam of Odin and Thor, as in the temple of Fear called by a Hebrew or a Christian name.
With a knowledge of the Infinite God, and with a fair development of the religious faculties, you cease to fear, you love. As nocturnal darkness, or the gray mist of morn, is chased away before the rising sun, so dread and horror flee off before the footsteps of love. Instead of fear, a sense of complete and absolute trust in God comes in, gives you repose and peace, filling you with tranquillity and dear delight in God. Then I know not what a day shall bring forth; some knave may strip me of my house and home, an accident—my own or another's fault—deprive me of the respect of men, and death leave me destitute of every finite friend, the objects of instinctive or of voluntary love all scattered from before my eyes; some hireling of the government, for ten pieces of silver, may send me off a slave for all my mortal life ; decay of sense may perplex me, wisdom shut out an eye and ear; and disease may rack my frame. Still I am not afraid. I know what eternity will be. I appeal from man to God. Forsaken, I am not alone; uncomforted, not comfortless. I fold my arms and smile at the ruin which time has made, the peace of God all radiant in my soul.
Let me look full in the face the evil which I meet in the personal tragedies of private life, in the social evils which darkly variegate this and all other great towns; let me see monstrous political sin, dooming one man to a throne because he has trod thousands down to wretchedness and dirt; nay, let me see such things as happen now in Boston. I know no sadder sight on all this globe of lands:
