The Heavenly Father | Page 6

elements of which our idea of God is
composed. And whence comes this idea? What is its historical origin? I
do not ask what is the historical origin of religion, for religion does not
take its rise in history; it is met with everywhere and always in
humanity. Those who deny this are compelled to "search in the
darkness for some obscure example known only to themselves, as if all
natural inclinations were destroyed by the corruption of a people, and
as if, as soon as there are any monsters, the species were no longer any
thing."[4] The consciousness of a world superior to the domain of
experience is one of the attributes characteristic of our nature. "If there
had ever been, or if there still anywhere existed, a people entirely
destitute of religion, it would be in consequence of an exceptional
downfall which would be tantamount to a lapse into animality."[5] I am
not therefore inquiring after the origin of the idea and sentiment of the
Deity, in a general sense, but after the origin of the idea of the only and
Almighty Creator as we possess it. In fact, if religion is universal,
distinct knowledge of the Creator is not so.
Our own past strikes its roots into the historic soil which, in the matter
of creeds, is known by the name of paganism or idolatry. At first sight
what do we find in the opinions of that ancient world? No trace of the
divine unity. Adoration is dispersed over a thousand different beings.
Not only are the heavenly bodies adored and the powers of nature, but
men, animals, and inanimate objects. The feeling of the holiness of God
is not less wanting, it would seem, than the idea of His unity. Religion
serves as a pretext for the unchaining of human passions. This is the
case unfortunately with religion in general, and the true religion is no
exception to the rule: but what characterizes paganism is that in its case
religion, by its own proper nature, favors the development of
immorality. Celebrated shrines become the dens of a prostitution which
forms part of the homage rendered to the gods; the religious rites of
ancient Asia, and those of Greece which fell under their influence, are
notorious for their lewdness. The temples of false deities, too often

defiled by debauchery, are too often also dishonored by frightful
sacrifices. The ancient civilization of Mexico was elegant and even
refined in some respects; but the altars were stained, every year, with
the blood of thousands of human beings; and the votaries of this
sanguinary worship devoured, in solemn banquets, the quivering limbs
of the victims. Let us not look for examples too far removed from the
civilization which has produced our own. In the Greek and Roman
world, the stories of the gods were not very edifying, as every one
knows: the worship of Bacchus gave no encouragement to temperance,
and the festivals of Venus were not a school of chastity. It would be
easy, by bringing together facts of this sort, to form a picture full of
sombre coloring, and to conclude that our idea of God, the idea of the
only and holy God, does not proceed from the impure sources of
idolatry. The proceeding would be brief and convenient; but such an
estimation of the facts, false because incomplete, would destroy the
value of the conclusion. In pagan antiquity, in fact, the abominations of
which I have just reminded you did not by themselves make up
religious tradition. Side by side with a current of darkness and impurity,
we meet with a current of pure ideas and of strong gleams of the day.
Almost all the pagans seem to have had a glimpse of the Divine unity
over the multiplicity of their idols, and of the rays of the Divine
holiness across the saturnalia of their Olympi. It was a Greek who
wrote these words: "Nothing is accomplished on the earth without Thee,
O God, save the deeds which the wicked perpetrate in their folly."[6] It
was in a theatre at Athens that the chorus of a tragedy sang, more than
two thousand years ago: "May destiny aid me to preserve unsullied the
purity of my words and of all my actions, according to those sublime
laws which, brought forth in the celestial heights, have Heaven alone
for their father, to which the race of mortal men did not give birth, and
which oblivion shall never entomb. In them is a supreme God, and one
who waxes not old."[7] It would be easy to multiply quotations of this
order, and to show you in the documents of Grecian and Roman
civilization numerous traces of the knowledge of the only and holy God.
Listen now to a voice which