Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 174, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1914 — THE BELIEF IN GOD. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE BELIEF IN GOD.

(By His Eminence JAMES, CARDINAL GIBBONS.) “Never yet did there exist a full faith In the divine word which did not the heart.”—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet and philosopher. How are we to account for the moral unanimity of mankind in acknowledg-

ing a Supreme BeIng? There is but one rational solution to be given, which may be thus briefly expressed: God enlightens with toe light of reason every man that c&neto into toe world. Guided by that light, we recognize the Creator from toe contemplation of His works. We naturally and without effort of mind associate the Archi-

tect with the temple of nature luminously standing before üb, just as the human voice sounding in our ears is associated In our mind with a speaker hidden from our view. How can bur soul lißten in silent wonder to the heavenly music of the spheres without admiring the Divine Composer? We cannot separate the Builder from We cannot admire the masterpiece without bestowing a thought on the great Artist The connection is inseparable. The invisible Author is “clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” By the same light of reason we see also within us a moral law written on our hearts, We perceive an essential difference between right and wrong, good and evil, virtue and vice. From the recognition of trfls universal law we “Inevitably Infer a tinivetsal Lawgiver. We hear a voice within ub Judging us, commending or condemning us, and from the imperious judgment pronounced upon us we conclude that, there exists a Sovereign Judge. - And thus God reveals himself to us as our Creator, as our- Lawgiver, as our Judge. As our Creator, He manifests himself to us by His works. As our Lawgiver, He speaks to us by His law, written on Our hearts. As our Judge, He speaks to us by the voice of conscience. We apprehend Him by our reason, our moral sense, and our conscience. And, therefore, as long as man continues to exercise his intellectual and moral faculties, so long will he profess his faith in the existence of a living God.