" This is the
language of La Place, the author of "La Mecanique Celeste," one of the
greatest books of the world. He spoke from real experience. He had seen
religion "abolished by law." He had seen the "worship of Reason"
established with the decapitation of seven thousand innocent citizens of
France. He had heard one of the apostles of Reason arise in the
Constituent Assembly and demand two hundred and ninety thousand corpses
instead of seven thousand. Then this man who had grasped the machinery
of the heavens, who had shown the absolute accuracy of Newton's great
discovery, wrote, in the same spirit of absolute knowledge: "I have
lived long enough to know what I did not once believe." Magnificent
testimony! Almost as valuable as the teachings of our own hearts! The
same statement comes from
THE ROCK OF ST. HELENA.
Victor Hugo, with a mind like that of Shakspeare, says: "I believe in
the sublimity of prayer." "If we traverse the world," says Plutarch, "it
is possible to find cities without walls, without letters, without
Kings, without wealth, without coin, without schools, without theatres;
but a city without a temple, or that practiceth not worship, prayers,
and the like, no one ever saw.
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