Gopsel philosophy...

Preface

SECTARIANS generally dread meeting a "Mormon" Elder in discussion, for they well know the humiliating defeat which has been the result to their compeers in hundreds of instances.

But there is another class of persons who often bring formidable-looking arguments against the truths of the gospel. This class is composed frequently of persons of considerable learning, research and intelligence. They have long ago become disgusted with the absurdities of so-called Christianity; and are not slow in showing the disagreement of sectarian dogmas with the teachings of the Bible, or contrasting the Bible with supposed science. In some instances, otherwise valuable scientific works are marred by sneers at the books of inspiration. In this age of earnest thought and research into all branches of knowledge, many of these works fall into the hands of the young and hence the growth of skepticism in the minds of many. Many of the facts contained in this work have been collected from, and references made to larger works not easily accessible to the general reader. A large number of the illustrations have been designed . expressly for this work, and engraved by Brother John Held, of Salt Lake City.

To gather into a small compass the leading arguments of infidel writers, and to refute them by well-known facts ; to show the cause of the conflict between science and religion ; and to harmonize true science with the teachings of God's word, has been the design in writing this little work. That in its perusal the young may find their faith strengthened in the principles of the gospel ; thoughtful minds find food for reflection, and the missionary Elder a valuable book of reference, is the earnest wish of

The Author.

Index

Ancient Scientists^ . 22,164

Absurdities of Spiritualism 19

Anaesthetics Discovered 35

Astronomy not Exact 39

Apostles, their Character 122, 125

Atmosphere, Condition of Early 179

Aurochs not yet Extinct 188

Benefits of Romanism 23

Brahminism 16

Bruno ^ 29

Buffon's Theory of Creation ^ 65

Babylon, Prophecies Concerning 136, 139

Books of New Testament 97

Burial Place in Catacombs * 128

Bird, Earliest yet Found 196

Bird-Like Reptile 191

Bark from Coal Mine 182

Catacombs 127, 129

Calvin's Bigotry 29, 31

Constantine, Character of 93

Cosmas, Philosophy of 27

Copernicus 29

Causes of Infidelity 35, 36

Carlyle's Absurdities 77

Compte's Absurdities 83

Chesterfield's Letters 84

Coin Found at Philippi 89

Celsus, His Writings 95

Crust of the Earth 43

Correspondence of Paine 84

Chalk Magnified 194

Climate of Coal Period 184, 198

Character of Heathen Gods 81

Disagreement of Scientists 13, 47

Dead Sea 70

Dispersion of Jews 117 vii INDEX.

Deluge, Scientific Theory of 154

Dinornis, Skeleton of 189

Development of Species 188

Eye, Section of Human 58

Errors in Astronomy 39

Egypt, Present State of 142

Errors of Romanism 25, 26

Early Vegetation 182

Extinct Birds # 188, 189

Essential Conditions of Life 205

Fire-Mist, Theory of 64

Forest of Coal Period 185

Faculties of the Mind 207

Oalileo 30

Geology Uncertain 41, 45

Giant Cities of Bashan 74

Gibbon's Testimony 93

Great Men Believers 212

Humboldt 33

Heathen Philosophy 79

Heathen Morals 80

Human Eye 58

Heat and Motion 178, 179

Huxley's Embryotic Theory 190

Illumination of St. Lawrence 176

Influence of Judaism 119

Jenner's Discoveries 35

Juggernaut 82, 83

liUther's Superstition 32

Light, Velocity of 156

u Various Sources of 175

" Without Sunshine . 165,166

" From the Earth 175, 176

Marcion, the Apostate 96

Milky Way 157

Modern Prophecy 149, 150

Monsters, Primeval 198

Man's Nervous System 208

Newman's Absurdities 77

New Testament Books 97

Nature in Continual Change 167 vii. INDEX.

Ocean, Primeval

Olbers, Theory of

Plesiosaurius

Protestant Bigotry

Parker's Absurdities

77, 78

Plato's Code of Laws

Paine, his Character and Writings

Paul, the Apostle

102, 122

Pliny's Letters

Personal Appearance of the Savior

Prophetic Symbols

Prophecy Concerning Judea

Egypt

142, 143

Babylon

Protoplasm

Rosetta Stone

Revelation Progressive

Religion of India

15, 82

Rings of Saturn

153, 154

Reptilian Bird

Servetus Burned

Spirit Controls Protoplasm

Simpson, James Y.

Section of Earth's Crust

" of Human Eye

Solar System

Solomon's Knowledge

Saturn

Stars Variable

Sun Spots

Sun Inhabitable

Sun's Atmosphere

Spencer's Philosophy

Tertulian's Writings

Testimony of Tacitus

Trajan's Letter

Temple of Belus

Universe, Extent of

55, 158

Uintah Mountains, Section of

Worship of Juggernaut

Western Continent Upheaved

GOSPEL PHILOSOPHY.

Chapter I. Absurdities Of Infidelity

THE PRESENT AN EARNEST AGE — AN EARNEST RELIGION REQUIRED — YOUNG MEN LIABLE TO SKEPTICISM — LITERARY FOPS — SCIENTISTS DO NOT AGREE — TESTIMONY OF SOCRATES AND PLATO — ABSURDITIES OF BRAHMINISM AT- TEMPTS OF FRENCH INFIDELS — ROSETTA STONE — MODERN SPIRITUALISM.

The gospel is truly a grand system. Let us try to entertain right views concerning it. Let us enlarge our minds to grasp it, that we may, to some extent at least, conceive its greatness and appreciate its beauties.

The peculiar wants of the age in w r hich we live are worthy of deep and careful consideration. Never was there a time in the history of the race, when learning and general intelligence were so well diffused as at the present. The press is throwing off continually its millions of printed pages, which are scattered broadcast as the leaves of Autumn. Books on almost every conceivable subject can be cheaply bought; and journals, magazines and pamphlets, both of a good and evil influence, attract the attention of the young.

Never was there a time of more intense activity. Who can pass through the crowded streets of our cities, listen to the throbbings of the steam-engine, the hum of machinery, the appliances of electricity, gaze at the vast trains that are driven with fire and vapor along our railways, or view those magnificent structures that cross the mighty deep, without feeling that this is an earnest age?

Now, this earnest, active, thinking age demands a religion that has life and power in it. Not a religion of cold formality and narrow sectarianism, but a religion that will satisfy the intellect with its truths, touch the heart with its love, sway the will with its persuasiveness, gratify the taste with its beauties and fill the imagination with its sublimities. A religion is wanted that will enlist upon its side the whole nature of man, and command his willing and devoted homage; a religion that, bearing the full impress of its Author's image, shall carry its own credentials with it; and which, clothed with all the elements of truth and righteousness, beauty and grandeur of love and power, shall be revered by all those who love the truth, and dreaded by all who love it not.

This is the religion that the gospel reveals. There is no antagonism between philosophy and faith, between science and religion, whatever the seeming oppositions of the present; in reality it is perfect harmony. The gospel overwhelms, nay, rather, includes all philosophy.

YOUNG MEN LIABLE TO DOUBT. 11

In the life of many young men there is a period of skepticism. Then the young man is extremely liable to doubt. Then he questions all his previous convictions, challenges all his accepted opinions, and is in danger of drifting aimlessly on the wide tossing sea of unbelief, the sport of every wind of doctrine, the easy prey of every theory conceived by the ingenious brain of man.

At this period his faith in God and man is liable to be swept away through a misconception of the real teachings of science, and the example of those w r ho seek to excuse their wicked lives under the specious plea of unbelief. This period of skeptical tendency comes early in life, frequently when the young man is in college or in the schools of science, when he begins to think and act for himself. It is intelligent, earnest young men of brains and capacity who are in special danger from the skepticism of the age.

Many of these young men have been trained in the Sabbath school, but at nineteen or twenty a change comes over them. They feel the strength and vigor of awakening manhood, and that impatience of authority which is characteristic of young men in this formative period of life. A young man hears of men of learning who r ej ect religion; he reads now and then a magazine full of doubts and insinuations, and he begins to feel that all his belief is simply the result of his education, and that under other circumstances he might have been a Confucian, a Buddhist or a Mahometan. Perhaps he meets with a tolerably educated but skeptical friend, who tells him in effect that religion is a fraud, that the Bible is a very good book, to be sure, but destitute of divine authority. He tells him, in a word, that these things may do for women and children to believe, but as for himself, he has put away all such belief along with his childish toys.

Our young man listens to all this flippant nonsense with itching ears, until, at length, he pretends to believe the world was made by chance, is governed by chance and all things that exist are only the effects of chance.

But there is a comical side to this question, as well as to many others. Prof. Agassiz wisely observes that, "men frequently talk very learnedly of what they know but very little;" and I know of nothing more irresistibly ludicrous than to see one of these so-called scientific skeptics, who scarcely knows the difference between the leg of a wasp and the horn of a beetle, and yet will assume to patronize the Almighty and talk about progress and culture as though he was the most remarkable prodigy of the age in which he lives.

It is enough to disgust an honest man, to see some of these literary fops going along with Darwin's works under one arm and a case of transfixed grasshoppers and butterflies under the other, talking about Huxley's "protoplasm" and "natural selection," and "nebular hypothesis," and "biogensis," and "abigensis," all the while lisping with an "exthquithit lithp", and indicating by word, tone and gesture that all who dissent from their opin-

DISAGREEMENT OF SCIENTISTS. 13

ions are grossly ignorant and scarcely worthy of their notice.

But the greatest joke is that the scientists which they so much admire do not agree. Darwin is charging at Lamarch, Walace spearing Cope, and Herschel denouncing Ferguson. How many colors in a ray of sun-light? Seven, says Newton; only three, says David Brewster. How high above the earth is the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Light? Two and a half miles, says Prof. Lias; one hundred and sixty-five, says Prof. Tumming. La Place says the moon was not put in the right place, it should have been four times as far away; while Prof. Lionville comes up just in time and gives us the wonderful information (?) that the Creator was acquainted with His business and fixed it exactly right.

How far is the sun from the earth? Less than a million miles, says Zadkiel ; seventy-six millions of miles, says La Caille; eighty-two millions, says Humboldt; ninty millions, says Henderson; one hundred and four millions, says Mayer. Only a slight difference of one hundred and three millions of miles, or a good deal farther than a person could travel, at the rate of fifty miles per hour, during the next two centuries, if he could live that long. And j^et, amidst all this confusion and contradiction, we are coolly asked to give up the words of inspiration and hang our hopes of the future on the miserable vagaries of self-contradicting philosophers.

Another very lud icrous as well as amusing instance of the folly of infidelity is the fact that skeptics will catch at almost anything upon which to hang their faith. All around us, in every grade of society, are to be found men who will tell us that the Vedas and Shasters of the Hindoos are far more trustworthy than the writings of Moses, Isaiah, Paul, Nephi or Joseph. They will tell us what sublime philosophers Brahma and Confucius were, while, at the same time, they have never read a word of their doctrines, or even seen a volume of their works. All they know is what some other truth-hating infidel has told them.

But for the sake of argument let us glance at some of these wonderful writings. Socrates, one of the greatest of heathen philosophers, admits, "We must of necessity wait till some one from Him, who careth for us, shall come and instruct us how to behave toward God and toward man."

Plato declares, "We cannot know of ourselves what will be pleasing to God ; it is necessary that a law-giver should be sent from heaven to instruct us." And he further adds, "Oh, how greatly do I long to see that man ! " (Plato's Republic, Book iv and vi.)

Who has not felt sad at the dying words of Socrates, "I am going out of the world and you are to continue in it, but which of us has the better part is a secret to all but God." Nor is the philosophy of India any better. A few years ago, when, through the labors of Oriental scholars, the Vedas and Shasters of the Hindoos were translated and printed in European languages, a great shout went

ABSURDITIES OF BRABMINISM. 15

up from the army of infidels. "Here," said they, "is the true chronology. Henceforth the Jewish records must hide their heads." ' Accordingly the Shasters were, for a time, in high repute among those who knew very little about them.

Now, when we remember that these muchvaunted histories profess to reach back through ma-ha-yugs or epochs of 4,320,000 of our years, that a thousand of these epochs makes a kalpa or one day of the life of Brahma — the nights being of the same duration — and that his life consists of one hundred years of such days and nights, w r e can easily see the absurdity of these histories. In these works are also the records of the seven great continents of the world, separated by seven rivers and seven chains of mountains, four hundred thousand miles high, and the history of the families of their kings, one of whom had ten thousand sons, another sixty thousand who were born in a pumpkin, nourished in pans of milk, reduced to ashes by the curse of a demon and restored to life by the waters of the Ganges. These records give statements of wonderful eclipses, comets and deluges, seven of which covered the earth, not merely to the top of these wonderfully high mountains, but even reaching to the polar star. Yet infidels have the assurance to quote these as standard works of undoubted authority, and worthy of the credence of intelligent beings. (Duff's India, page 127.)

Nor are the promises of the future life any less absurd than the foregoing. "Tell me," said a wealthy Hindoo, who had given all his wealth to the Brahmins who surrounded his dying bed, that he might obtain "a pardon of his sins, "what shall become of my soul when I die?" The priest replied, "Your soul will go into the body of a holy cow." "And after that?" he asked again. "It will pass into the body of a divine peacock." "And after that?" "It will pass into a flower." "Where, 0, where will it go last of all?" cried the dying man. "Where will it go last of all? Ah! that is the question."

While British infidels were admiring the sacred writings of the Hindoos, and holding them up before the world as superior to the word of God, French skeptics were busy in a similar employment. When Napoleon invaded Egypt, in 1798, he took with him a large corps of scientific men. In the ceiling of a temple at Dendera, in Upper Egypt, some of these scientists discovered a stone tablet covered with strange characters. These characters, it was concluded, were a representation of the relative positions of the sun, moon and stars at the time the temple was built; and, calculating backwards, it was found that this could not be less than seventeen thousand years ago. This tablet was taken from the ceiling of the temple and carried away to France, and placed in the national library in Paris. Hundreds of thousands came to see the antediluvian monument, and infidel commentators were never wanting to inform them that this remarkable stone proved the whole Bible to be a series of lies. One of the discoverers, after-

ROSETTA STONE. 17

wards a professor in the University of Breslau, published a pamphlet, entitled, "Invincible proof that the earth is at least ten times older than is taught by the Bible." During the next thirty years, scores of such publications followed; and the base slander received many additions and improvements, until it was a common saying that this stone proved that "the priests of Egypt were carving astronomy on their pyramids ten thousand years before Adam was born."

It did not shake their credulity in the least, that no two of their wise men were agreed by some thousands of years, how old the stone was — that no one even knew the first principles of the Egyptian system of astronomy, and that none of them could read the hieroglyphics.

But, in" 1832, the curious Egyptian astronomy was studied, and it then appeared that this object, which had caused so much commotion, was simply a calendar stone to aid in the measurement of time; and that the positions of the sun, moon and stars were so placed to enable common observers to ascertain the beginning of the year. At length? by means of the Rosetta Stone — which furnished a key to these hieroglyphics — Champolion and others learned to read the inscriptions on Egyptian monuments.

The Rosetta Stone was discovered by the French, in 1799, at Rosetta, Egypt. When in a perfect condition it was a tablet of black basalt, three feet high, two feet five inches wide, and ten inches thick. The inscription was in three languages:

GOSPEL PHILOSOPHY.

Coptic, Greek and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. On the publication of the inscriptions it was found that they were the key to the hieroglyphic characters. It was then discovered that the- names of Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, were engraved on the stone, as well as the names of the Roman

(Eosetta Stone, showing present and original form, and specimens of Greek, Coptic and Hieroglyphic characters.)

emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and Domitian. The inscriptions revealed the fact that they had no reference to early Egyptian history. The edifice in which the first-mentioned stone was found was

MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 19 simply a heathen Roman temple, built between the fourteenth and eighty-first years of the Christian era.

Even at the present time, in the noon-day of modern science and so-called civilization, astrologers,mediums, clairvoyants and fortune-tellers by the hundred find a profitable business among those who consider themselves too learned, wise and progressive to believe in the word of God. One infidel lecturer even advertises that he will reveal to you the secrets of the future and cure you of any disease you may have, if you will only enclose in a letter a few hairs taken from your right temple and — and — a — ten dollar bill. Concerning the future life, infidels have every variety of oracles, conjectures and suppositions; but for their guesses they have no proof. The only thing upon which they seem agreed is in denying the resurrection of the body. According to their ideas, a poor, naked, shivering, table-rapping spirit, obliged to fly over the world at the sigh of any brainless fop or silly, sentimental girl, or the bidding of some brazen-faced strumpet, is all that ever shall exist of all the great and good men and women that have lived upon the earth.

To such wild unreason does the mind of man descend when it rejects the gospel, for only through it life and immortality are brought to light. A year or two since, the leader of American infidels, Robert Ingersol, was called to deliver a funeral oration over the body of his brother. In that short discourse there were many beautiful sentiments: but through it all, as through a transparent glass, was shown the need, which even Ingersol felt, of divine revelation and divine guidance.

Chapter II. Causes Of The Supposed Conflict Between Science And Religion

SCIENCE AND REVELATION HARMONIZE — WANT OF REVELATION THE CAUSE OF BARBARISM — BENE- FITS AND EVILS OF ROMANISM — CONFLICT CON- CERNING GEOGRAPHY — PHILOSOPHY OF COS- MAS — STRUGGLES OF COPERNICUS — BRUNO — GALILEO — OPPOSITION OF LUTHER — SERVETUS BURNED — PROTESTANT BIGOTRY — CAUSES OF INFIDELITY.

Truth is ever harmonious. Science and religion, in the true sense of the terms, can never be in conflict with each other. The direct revelations of God to man must ever agree with the results of scientific investigation. Invention and discovery are but the unfolding of the laws, attributes and objects of nature to man's finite understanding — the action of the divine will on ths minds of men. So, whether man seeks for spiritual truth through the revelations of God, or looks out upon the material world and investigates the working of physical laws, the result must be the same. A truth revealed to the sensitive, impulsive human

BENEFITS OF SCIENCE. 21

heart to-day in its full play of emotions and passions cannot be at any real variance with a truth written upon a far-off planet rolling in the depths of space, or upon a fossil whose poor life ebbed away thousands of years ago. Yet, strange to say, a conflict has been going on for years between some students of science on one side and the devotees of religion on the other. Nearly all the great and good men of the medieval or modern times have been engaged on one side or the other, and a hard contest it has been. The war has been waged longer, the battles have been fiercer, the sieges more persistent, the diplomacy more far-reaching, and the revenge more deadly than ever characterized the military campaigns of Alexander, Csesar or Napoleon.

Let us then inquire into the causes of this conflict and try and understand something concerning it. In the first place we must be careful not to underrate science. On every side we see its beneficent effects. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, and the houses we dwell in depend in a great measure upon it for their existence. When we travel it is mostly by the appliances of science. The books we read are manufactured by its aid. It transmits our messages to and from our friends, and prepares the light that illuminates our streets and dwellings. It has contributed greatly to relieve human suffering and promote human happiness, and to distinguish the civilized from the savage races of the earth.

And what has religion done? So long as it was true and pure it was the favored child of heaven. While the true church existed upon the earth, whether Jewish or Christian, we hear of no conflict between its members and the students of science. On the other hand we find from their writings that Moses, Job, David, Solomon and Isaiah were the leading scientists of the ages in which they lived. They understood natural history, architecture, sculpture, poetry, music, botany, and in astronomy they made such progress that many of the constellations still retain the names they used, such as Orion, Pleaides, etc. (See Job xxxviii, 3J ; Amos v, 8.) We read of no conflict between the truths of science and the teachings of Paul, though he was one of the most learned men of the age in which he lived. On the other hand the discourse of Paul in the court of the Areopagus, was the complement or sequel of ideas already held by the most celebrated Grecian philosophers. (See Acts xvii, 19-23.)

It was not till after the great apostasy, when the voice of inspiration had ceased, that the great conflict commenced between science and the so-called Christian church.

We shall better understand this fact, when we recollect that from the time of the apostles to the ninth century, science, literature and philosophy were well nigh extinct. No schools of painting flourished, no models in sculpture were designed, no order of architecture arose, no great poem was written, and no history compiled, which have been deemed worthy to be transmitted to our times. It

BENEFITS OF ROMANISM. 23

was only when European society came largely in contact with Jewish and Saracen influences during the wars of the Crusades and in contact with the Jews and Saracens of Spain, that any decided advances were made. As if to mark out to the world the real cause of its intellectual degradation, the regeneration of Italy ' commenced with the banishment of the popes to Avignon. Their exile continued more than seventy years; and during their absence, so rapid was the social and intellectual progress that on their return to Rome, they found it impossible to make any successful resistance, or to restore the old condition of society.

Yet even in her apostatized condition the Catholic church did much for the amelioration of society. At the commencement of the fourth century of the Christian era, a cloud of more than Cimmerian darkness overshadowed western Europe. It was then occupied by wandering savages. The period embraced in the next thousand years greatly improved its condition. It was during this period that the population were organized into families, communities and cities. Those centuries found it full of bondmen — they left it without a slave. Where there had been trackless forests, there were now farms, orchards and villages. Instead of bloody chieftains drinking out of their enemies' skulls, there were parish priests teaching the masses the crude beginning of religious thought. Instead of gladiatorial combats, which characterized ancient Roman civilization, there were thoughtful men gravely pondering the problems of free agency and moral responsibility.

Enveloped as she was by the evils of the times, the Catholic church gave rise to many improvements. She taught the doctrine of an ultimate accountability for personal deeds, of which the ancient inhabitants of Europe had very indistinct perceptions. Under her direction the brotherhood of man was taught as it had never been before, and was illustrated, not merely by individual acts of charity, the memory of which is soon forgotten, but also by the establishment of permanent institutions, such as hospitals, alms-houses, schools and asylums for the relief of the afflicted, for the spread of knowledge and the succoring of the oppressed. Many of her high dignitaries, and even popes, were men who had risen from the humbler ranks of society. These men, true to their instincts, were often the champions of right against might. In an age of tyranny, the very organization of the church was essentially republican. It thus paved the way for modern representative governments, and prepared the minds of men for their introduction.

Still it was not over nations and communities that Rome showed her chief power, but in her control of domestic and individual interests. History presents no record like hers. Her pontiffs in the quiet halls of the Vatican could equally take in a hemisphere at a glance or examine the private character of any individual. Was there a rebellion in Spain ? Her agents informed her of

BENEFITS OF ROMANISM. 25

it. Was there an obscure philosopher in Germany writing down the results of his investigations ? She also knew it. While she restrained the power and tyranny of kings by her influence, she also relieved the hungry beggar or wandering minstrel at the monastery gate. In all Europe there was not a man too obscure, too insignificant or too desolate for her. Surrounded by her solemnities every one received his name at her altar, her bells chimed at his marriage and her knell tolled at his funeral. By her confessionals she extorted from him the secrets of his life, and by her penances she punished him for his faults. In the hour of sickness and trouble her servants sought him out, teaching him to place his trust in God, and strengthening him for the trials of life by the example of the good and faithful of former days. And when at length his lifeless body had become an offense, even to his friends, she received it into her consecrated ground, there to rest till the resurrection morning. She raised woman from nearly the condition of a slave and made her the equal and fit companion of man ; and in turn, received a recompense by a firm friend in every home. In an age of bloodshed and plunder she lifted up her hand in defense of the weak, and made her sanctuaries a refuge for the despairing and oppressed. But here arose the difficulty. The so-called Christian church by apostasy had lost the key of revelation. Her decisions depended not upon the voice of inspiration but upon the musty parchments of the past. Claiming to be the church of

God, she regarded her decisions as infallible and irrevocable, her teachings as beyond question. Her ideas were crystalized; her philosophy, if indeed it was worthy of that name, was stationary, as must be the case with all systems reposing on a final revelation of God. In the domain of the Catholic church during the space of a thousand years, namely from the time of the apostles to the eleventh century, not a book had been written, not a painting executed, nor statue sculptured of sufficient merit to rescue the name of the author from oblivion. Throughout the length and breadth of Europe there fell a dark cloud of intellectual stagnation, an invisible atmosphere of oppression ready to break down morally and physically whatever opposed its weight; except where a few feeble rays of light were kept flickering by the efforts of Jewish and Mahometan scholars. She at once disclosed her human and denied her divine origin by attempting to force fixed laws on society in the presence of higher truths and advancing civilization.