Are we to suppose that it was a miserable
piece of spiritual legerdemain, this which so many creatures of the
Almighty have lived by and died by? I, for my part, cannot form any such
supposition. I will believe most things sooner than that. One would be
entirely at a loss what to think of this world at all, if quackery so
grew and were sanctioned here.
Alas, such theories are very lamentable. If we would attain to knowledge
of anything in God's true Creation, let us disbelieve them wholly! They
are the product of an Age of Scepticism; they indicate the saddest
spiritual paralysis, and mere death-life of the souls of men: more
godless theory, I think, was never promulgated in this Earth. A false
man found a religion? Why, a false man cannot build a brick house! If he
do not know and follow _truly_ the properties of mortar, burnt clay and
what else he works in, it is no house that he makes, but a rubbish-heap.
It will not stand for twelve centuries, to lodge a hundred-and-eighty
millions; it will fall straightway. A man must conform himself to
Nature's laws, _be_ verily in communion with Nature and the truth of
things, or Nature will answer him, No, not at all! Speciosities are
specious--ah me!--a Cagliostro, many Cagliostros, prominent
world-leaders, do prosper by their quackery, for a day. It is like a
forged bank-note; they get it passed out of _their_ worthless hands:
others, not they, have to smart for it.
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