p. 9 | A WORD TO THE SKEPTIC by James Russell Lowell

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jan 17, 1906

A WORD TO THE SKEPTIC.

By James Russell Lowell

WHEN the microscopic search of skepticism, which has hunted the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a Creator, has turned its attention to human society, and has found a place on this planet ten miles square, where a decent man can live in decency, comfort, and security, supporting and educating his children unspoiled and unpolluted; a place where age is reverenced, infancy respected, manhood respected, and womanhood honored, and human life held in due regard; when skeptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe, where the Gospel of Christ has not gone, and cleared the way, and laid the foundations, and made decency and security possible, it will then be in order for skeptical literati to remove thither and there ventilate their views. But so long as these very men are dependent upon the religion which they discard for every privilege they enjoy, they may well hesitate a little before they seek to rob the Christian of his hope, and humanity of its faith, in that Saviour who alone has given to man that hope of life eternal which makes life tolerable, and society possible, and robs death of its terrors and the grave of its gloom.—James Russell Lowell.