AN ATHEIST ON-THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13268, 27 April 1905, Page 10

AN ATHEIST ON-THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE.

to thjs editor. Sie,—One of your correspondents is very parliiculaJp in. claiming to be what ho avows and signs himsslf, "An Atheist." Ho need hardly' have taken the trouble. Tbcro is no mistaking his present position. Science, in his opinion, settles everything; Christianity settles nothing. One 'is constantly meeting statements of this kind in. our- newspapers; they aro very neatly put in ' the letter before, mo; but they arc. largely deceptive and utterly unreliable, all the same—Renerolly the' half knowledge of mou who dabble in soionoe of which they very often understand little, and who potter about the outskirts ot theology of which they understand,less. I venture on a littlo friendly advice to this " Atheist." Ho .'should think more and speak less... Ho tells you that ho has not come ocross'any very remarkable display of. omniscient and omnipotent intelligence ruling this, univorac. In his estimation it is vory much the other way. I can only assure him he has -had an mifortunatc experience, but blind'men do not see the natural beauty that lies all around them. Specially, I find, "An Atheist" has no patience with any reference to the incomprehensible and the mysterious. He should know, although it is not apparent tha!t he does, that this very avowal 6tamps him as not being the person; of philosophic temperament he would'.like to make himself out to be. The life which has no mysteries in it is a very poor and prosaic life, The high priests of science, as I read'them, bow their heads and stand reverently before a veil of mystery—acknowledged mystery— which they realise thov can neither rend nor draw aside! but through which there streams upon them a power, " a dim religious light," which, like tho winter's sky, "inlaid with patens of bright gold," affords (heuvtho joy of niontal guidance and elevation. .

"An Atheist'' declines to believe anything lie cannot understand, consequently liis creed is both short and simple—very savourless salt.' "Don't tell me things," he says. ' "Prove this, demonstrate that." is his persistent dema-nd of tho Christian. The answer is, or should bo: I have 710 such proof as you ask; I do not, need it, My religion has in it a large element of mystery—let me sneak of it us the supernatural, -whieli it is; and a demonstration of tho supernatural is an impossibility; itis a .contradiction in terni3. The two of us can make nothing of it. The supernatural is riot, to be demonstrated; it- is to be felt—it » a matter of faith, ■ not of sight-. , Between the man who insists upon seeing before ho believes, and the man who believes that ho may see, the dispute is futile, it is endless. It- is. as some writer has well observed, profitless as a dispute about tune between a mail with a, musical ear and 0110 who has no such ean They have no common measure—no standard—of the thing -in question. I hone -this view of the incomprehensible and the suoernatural may be useful to "An Atheist." If lie would only stand where the Christian stands, and feel as the Christ-im feels, ho would arrive at a knowledge of t-hines which would do him a world'of good.—l am, etc.,' ' j April 25. .William Hutchison".