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endeavouring to stem tlie tide of evil is that a literature, 
specially directed against the present phase of unbelief, and 
adapted for the classes who are most in danger from its 
sophistries, is still much needed. I would venture to suggest 
that in a matter of such vital importance as the best method of 
dealing with Atheism, there is nothing that we may with so 
much advantage study for our guidance as the example of the 
first inspired preachers of Christianity to the world. The 
heathen world, with which St. Paul, for example, had to 
deal, was, at heart. Atheistic, even more than it was idola- 
trous. AEsthetic feelings, national prejudices, and tradi- 
tional usages were in favour of the old heathen system; 
but at the root of much both of the sentiment and of 
the philosophy of heathenism there was unbelief in any true 
and living Giod. We find, however, that in addressing 
the heathens, the Apostle argues from the existence of God, 
and he asserts confidently that men know not only that 
there is a God, but also sufficient of God to recognise that 
idolatry is a contradiction of His being. But when we 
examine his language closely we find that there was 
always present to his own mind as the ground of this 
assumption, one particular evidence of the being of God, 
to which he expressly refers as absolutely and completely 
sufficient. Whether he addresses uncultivated Lycaonians or 
Athenian philosophers, or is writing to Romans of their heathen 
fellow-countrymen, he always appeals to the visible universe 
as affording proofs of the eternal power and divine attributes 
of God, quite sufficient for reasonable man. It is not to be 
supposed that this great Apostle, who, to use the vulgar 
phrase, was certainly “ abreast of the questions of the day,” 
knew nothing of the Atheistic speculations of the Epicurean 
philosophers whom he addressed at Athens, or of those of 
the Epicurean Roman poet, which are the very type, if not the 
origin, of the Atheistic theories of certain modern physicists. 
But he evidently considered that such speculations did not 
touch the question at all. Atoms or no atoms, the universe 
could only be the result of Divine Power and Divine Reason. 
We cannot but conclude from St. Paul's language that he con- 
sidered this witness to God absolutely unassailable. He speaks 
of God's Being, not as something that may be discovered, but 
as a manifest truth, known to all, though they may suppress 
and keep down their knowledge so that it fails to produce in them 
its proper effects. He does not say that it requires some special 
gift of faith in order that God's eternal power and divinity may 
be traced in His works ; he asserts that men are without excuse 
if they do not clearly recognise these. We must not infer 
