All liberal minds ought to catch their spirit and
administer every possible blessing to struggling humanity. But there is
a species of narrow-minded infidelity which must be shunned; and it is
the only kind of which we need to forebode any evil. "The only
infidelity to be feared," says Mr. Frothingham, "the only real
infidelity which is a sin in the sight of God, is a disbelief in the
primary faculties of the human soul; disbelief in the capability of
man's reason to discriminate between truth and error in all departments
of knowledge, sacred or profane; disbelief in the heart's instinctive
power to distinguish good from evil; disallowance of the claims of
conscience to pass a verdict upon matters of right and wrong, whenever
and wherever brought up. They are the infidels who are untrue to the
light they have; who deny the plenary inspiration of that elder
Scripture written by the finger of God upon the human heart; who overlay
their reason with heaps of antiquated traditions; who bid their
conscience stand dumb before appalling iniquities in obedience to the
ill-read letter of an ancient record; who, in the interest of power,
wealth, worldliness, not seldom of unrighteousness and inhumanity, plead
for a Tract society, a Bible, or a church; who compass sea and land to
make a proselyte, and when he is made, are quite indifferent as to his
being a practical Christian; who collect vast sums of money annually for
the ostensible purpose of saving men's souls, practically to the effect
of keeping their souls in subjection and blindness.
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