Girl's doll Greenlander's reasoning. follow the second blow, as an old man would be. The little girl is just as sure that somebody made her doll, as if she had seen it made; and children always ask, who did this thing, and who did that thing,—and they know that every effect must have a cause. Now see what I am going to do with this cause and effect. The Greenlanders are a very ignorant people. They eat seals, and whale-oil, and raw fish, and anything, and seem almost to be men-fish. But even they know that somebody must have made all the things which they see. One of them said these very words to a missionary. "It is true we were ignorant heathens, and knew little of God till you came. His kajak. But you must not think that no Greenlander thinks about these things. A kajak, (Greenland boat) with all its tackle and implements, cannot exist, but by the labors of man. But the formation of the meanest bird requires more skill than the best kajak, and no man can make a bird. There is still more skill required to make a man. But by whom was he made? He proceeded from his parents, and they from their parents, and whence did they proceed? Common report says they grew out of the ground. If so, why do not men grow out of the ground still? And whence came the earth itself, the sun, the moon, and the stars? Certainly there must be some Being who made all these things-a Being more wise The shipwreck. Marks on the sand Reasoning. than the wisest man." So the poor, ignorant Greenlander thought, and felt, and reasoned. Just so learned men think and feel. A great ship was once dashed to pieces in a storm, on an island. There was a learned man on board by the name of Aristippus. The people of the ship all expected to be torn in pieces by wild beasts, or murdered by savages. But on the sand of the sea-shore, Aristippus found some rude figures drawn, or marked out,—such figures as are used in studying mathematics. "Let us take courage, my friends," he cried out in joy, "for I see the marks of civilized men!" Now, how came he to think that men made these marks in the sand? Why did he not think that the winds or the Barn on fire. waves of the sea made these marks? Why did he not think that a bird made them with his claws, or a lion with his paw? Or why not think that a savage made them with the end of his bow? Because, this learned man knew that there must be some cause for these figures: and because they were SO round, or square, or true, he knew that they must be made by some man who had been educated and taught. This is the feeling of everybody all over the world. If you were to look out of your chamber window in a dark night and see a barn in flames, you know that somebody must have carried fire into it. If you travel and find a man murdered in the road, you know that somebody must be the murderer. We never see The universe anything done, when something did not do it. What is chance? somebody or And if a man should say that he had seen a house rise up out of the ground, built by nobody, we should say, it cannot be; that man must either have lost his reason, or be a great liar. We know that something, or somebody, must have made the sun, the moon, the stars, the world in which we live, the mountains and hills, the oceans and rivers, the trees and the flowers, the men and the animals. I say somebody or something must have made all these. But did they not all come by chance? By chance! And what is chance? I have heard some few people talk about chance, as if there were no God, and as if all things were made by chance! It |