The Fool Hath Said in his Heart, There Is no God.
By J. M. Dugan
No God? Stand under the concave heavens at night and say, if you can, “There is no God.” Utter such terrible blasphemy, and every twinkling star condemns the opacity of your understanding; every voice borne by the nocturnal winds will mourn for your utter hopelessness and accursed folly. Is there no God? Who, then, unrolled the azure scroll, and cast upon its lofty frontispiece the legible tokens of immortality? From whose hand came this green earth, with its unceasing, rolling waters, and its wide expanse of islands and the main? Who fixed the foundations of the mountains? Who gave the king of birds the secure aerie, where the tempests reign and blow the strongest, and to the dove a peaceful abode amid the forests that respond to the minstrelsy of her gentle moan? And, now, who created thee, O man, with thy marvelous allegiance of mind and stature? A Being, infinite in wisdom, who reigns over all, undivided and supreme, Fountain of all life, Source of all light, from whom all blessings flow, and in whom all happiness centers. “No God! no God! the simplest flower
That on the wild is found,
Shrinks as it drinks its cup of dew,
And trembles at the sound. “The winged seeds borne by the winds,
The roving sparrows feed,
The melon on the desert sands,
Confute the scorner’s creed. “High sweeps the deep and vengeful sea,
Along its billowy track,
And red Vesuvius opes its mouth
To hurl the falsehood back.”
—J. M. Dugan.