(4 The Destiny of Man. 



practical side, Atheism would remove Hu- 

 manity from its peculiar position in the 

 world, and make it cast in its lot with the 

 grass that withers and the beasts that per- 

 ish ; and thus the rich and varied life of 

 the universe, in all the ages of its won- 

 drous duration, becomes deprived of any 

 such element of purpose as can make it in- 

 telligible to us or appeal to our moral sym- 

 pathies and religious aspirations. 



And yet the first result of some of the 

 grandest and most irrefragable truths of 

 modern science, when newly discovered 

 and dimly comprehended, has been to 

 make it appear that Humanity must be 

 rudely unseated from its throne in the 

 world and made to occupy an utterly sub- 

 ordinate and trivial position ; and it is 

 because of this mistaken view of their im- 

 port that the Church has so often and so 

 bitterly opposed the teaching of such 

 truths. With the advent of the Coper- 

 nican astronomy the funnel-shaped Inferno, 

 the steep mountain of Purgatory crowned 



