Natural Religion

us a law and subjected us to a trial ? Does he reserve for us another existence after the present ? As we advance along the road of life, our relatives, our friends fall on every side of us. We consign their bodies to the earth, but whither do their souls depart ? Are we for ever separated from the dead ? Is there nothing beyond the grave ? Christianity supplies an answer for all these questions. It teaches man his origin, his rule of conduct, and his end; in a word, it tells him all that is necessary for the guidance and consolation of life. Many minds repose with happiness in this secure light of revealed faith. But there are others that hesitate to admit the principle of revelation ; or being unable to believe all the truths taught by the Church, (while they fully comprehend that we cannot separate portions of the divine word, but must accept or reject the whole,) imagine themselves called upon to give up positive religion, and fly without reserve to philosophy. Those who seek to reduce religion to the authority of reason, will they find in reason all that they require ? Have the human faculties no intermediate resource between revelation and scepticism?Is there nothing beyond the circle of revealed truth which can reconcile earth with heaven ? I know that natural religion is often treated as a chimera, and that the impotence of philosophy is exaggerated when we read the accounts of so many idle disputes, of so many systems alternately flourishing and ove...