FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD’S RELIGION.

            The editor of the Richmond Times discourses to his readers, concerning a certain English historian in the following terms: —

            “It is generally believed that the celebrated David Hume, not only disbelieved the truth of Christian Revelation, but likewise the existence of the soul after death, or of any living and intelligent principle independent of the body. There are many portions of his writings which justify this opinion; but yet the following beautiful extract from the conclusion of one of his Essays, would lead us to believe that, however blind he might have been to the divine claims of the bible, he was not without the elevating belief in the immortality of the soul, without which all religion would disappear from the earth:

            Art copies only the outside of nature, despairing to reach that grandeur and magnificence which are so astonishing in the masterly works of her original. Can we then be so blind as not to discover an intelligence and a design in the exquisite and most stupendous contrivance of the universe? Can we then be so stupid as not to feel the warmest raptures of worship and adoration upon the contemplation of that intelligent Being, so infinitely good and wise? The most perfect happiness surely must arise from the contemplation of the most perfect object. But what more perfect than beauty and virtue? And where is beauty to be found equal to that of the universe, or virtue which can be compared to the veneration and justice of Deity? If aught can diminish the pleasures of this contemplation, it must be either the narrowness of our faculties, which conceals from us the greatest part of those beauties and perfections, or the shortness of our lives, which allows not time sufficient to instruct us in them. But it is our comfort that if we employ worthily the faculties here assigned us, they will be enlarged in another state of existence, so as to render us more suitable worshippers of our Maker; and that the task, which can never be finished in time, will be the business of an eternity.”

            As far as we are concerned it is a matter of no importance whether David Hume believed the Immortality of the Soul, or not: he did not believe the gospel, and therefore cannot be saved. We notice the above only because of the editor’s observation that “He was not without the elevating belief in the immortality of the soul, without which all religion would disappear from the earth.” If he had said all superstition instead of “all religion” we could have heartily assented to the proposition; for the “religion” of the world begins and ends in that absurd and ridiculous dogma of pagan philosophy. As to its being an elevating belief we by no means discern the proof of it in the conduct and conversation of those who profess it. Pagans, Mohammedans, Papists and Protestants all believe it; but it fails to elevate them above “the wisdom from beneath—which is earthly, sensual, and devilish,” as the apostle saith.

EDITOR.

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