be urged against mathematical demonstration more puzzling and unanswerable than any objections against moral evidence?"

“I shall yield the cause; but I am sure that the condition is impossible."

"Let us try," said the other.

The Newto

"I begin with a common case. nian system of the world is so perfectly settled, that no scholar presumes to question it. Go, then, to a peasant who never heard of Newton, nor Copernicus, nor the solar system; and tell him that the earth moves round its axis, and round the sun. He will stare at you, to see whether you be not jeering him; and when he sees you are in earnest, he will laugh at you for a fool. Ply him, now, with your mathematical and astronomical reasoning. He will answer you, that he believes his own eyesight more than your learning; and his eyesight tells him the sun moves round the earth. And as for the earth's turning round upon her axis, he will say, that he has often hung a kettle over the kitchen-fire at night, and when he came back in the morning, it was hanging there still, but, had the earth turned round, the kettle would have been turned over, and the mash spilled over the floor.' You are amused with the peasant's simplicity, but you cannot convince him. His objection is, in his own eyes, insurmountable: he will tell the affair to his neighbors as a good story; and they

will agree that he fairly shut the philosopher's mouth. You may reply, that 'the peasant was introduced into the middle of a matured science, and that, not having learned its elements, he was unsupplied with the principles of correct judgment.' True; but your solution has overthrown yourself. A freethinker, when he hears some great doctrine of Christianity, lets off a small objection, and runs away laughing at the folly, or railing at the imposture of all who venture to defend a divine revelation; he gathers his brother unbelievers, and they unite with him in wondering at the weakness or the impudence of Christians. He is in the very situation of the peasant. He bolts into the heart of a grand religious system; he has never adverted to its first principles, and then he complains that the evidence is bad. But the fault in neither case lies in the evidence: it lies in the ignorance or obstinacy of the objector. The peasant's ground is as firm as the infidel's. The proof of the Newtonian system is to the former as distant, subtle, and cloudy, as the proof of revelation can be to the latter; and the objection of the one, as good as the objection of the other. If the depravity of men had as much interest in persuading them that the earth is not globular, and does not move round the sun, as it has in persuading them that the Bible is not true, a mathematical demonstra

tion would fail of converting them, although the demonstrator were an angel of God!

"But with respect to the other point, viz. that there are objections to mathematical evidence more puzzling and unanswerable than can be alledged against moral reasoning, take the two following instances :

"It is mathematically demonstrated that matter is infinitely divisible: that is, has an infinite number of parts: a line, then, of half an inch long, has an infinite number of parts. Who does not see the absurdity of an infinite halfinch? Try the difficulty another way. It requires some portion of time to pass any portion of space. Then as your half-inch has an infinite number of parts, it requires an infinite number of portions of time for a moving point to pass by the infinite number of parts: but an infinite number of portions of time, is an eternity! Consequently it requires an eternity, or something like it, to move half an inch!"ang argument But, sir," interposed the officer, "you do not deny the accuracy of the demonstration, that matter is infinitely divisible!" "Not in the least, sir; I perceive no flaw in the chain of demonstration, and yet I perceive the result to be infinitely absurd.

"Again: it is mathematically demonstrated that a straight line, called the asymptote of the hyperbola, may eternally approach the curve of

the hyperbola, and yet can never meet it. Now, as all demonstrations are built upon axioms, an axiom must always be plainer than a demonstration and to my judgment it is as plain, that, if two lines continually approach, they shall meet, as that the whole is greater than its part. Here, therefore, I am fixed. I have a demonstration directly in the teeth of an axiom, and am equally incapable of denying either side of the contradiction."

"Sir," exclaimed the officer, clapping his hands together, "I own I am beat, completely beat: I have nothing more to say."

A silence of some minutes succeeded; when the young military traveler said to his theological friend, "I have studied all religions, and have not been able to satisfy myself."

"No, sir," answered he, "there is one religion which you have not yet studied."

"Pray, sir," cried the officer, roused and eager, "what is that?"

"The religion," replied the other, "of salvation through the redemption of the Son of God: the religion which will sweeten your pleasures, and soften your sorrows; which will give peace to your conscience, and joy to your heart; which will bear you up under the pressure of evils here, and shed the light of immortality on the gloom of the grave. This religion, I believe, yet to study."

sir, you

have

VOL. III.

51

The officer put his hands upon his face; then languidly clasping them, let them fall down; forced a smile, and said, with a sigh, "We must all follow what we think best." His behavior afterward was perfectly decorous. Nothing further is known of him.

NOTE. The individual by whom the "Conversation with a Young Traveler" was held, was the Rev. Dr. JOHN MASON, the father of the author, the first pastor of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, in the city of New York.

A considerable time after it occurred, a knock was heard at the door of Dr. M. at a very early hour, and a note, addressed to him, was handed in, accompanied by a handsome Beaver Hat. The note was from the " Young Traveler," and its purport "to remind Dr. M. of the circumstances under which he had once met with him; to inform him, that, in consequence of what he had then heard, he had been induced to study the religion of Jesus; that his investigation had resulted in an entire conviction of the divine origin of that religion; and that by the blessing of God, his remarks had been, as he hoped, made instrumental to the salvation of his soul."

He further added, "that he had recently received orders to return to Europe; had arrived in the city late on the preceding evening, and was about to sail that morning; that he should not have time to call on Dr. M., but begged him to accept the assurance of his affectionate regard; that in all human probability he should never see him on earth, but he indulged what he trusted was a well-founded hope, that they should spend a happy eternity together."

66 A WORD SPOKEN IN SEASON, HOW GOOD IS IT!"