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something that comes to a man distinctly — something apart from his reading, 
and from all the ordinary sources of information — 
Dr. Irons. — I have not said that. I like to hear what Mr. Holyoake is 
saying so fairly, but most of the things he has said show me that he has not 
read what I have written before ; for in these papers I have laid aside through- 
out the notion of what revelation is to be, except as to certain main outlines 
which seem to result from the principles laid down in the papers. 
Mr. Holyoake. — Then I will not pursue that argument. I will only say 
that I am most anxious myself to have ray mind, if possible, settled on these 
momentous questions. In spite of ourselves, say what we will, the desire 
comes up in our minds (hear, hear), and we are anxious to know the truth. But 
we feel that we are surrounded by a vast and profound mystery which human 
knowledge cannot penetrate. (Hear, hear.) I cannot lay aside reason and 
take up faith — I cannot say that I believe, or have faith in that in which my 
reasoning faculties will not justify me. Take, for instance, the future life 
which the doctor alluded to, and the question of retribution or reward in a 
future world. That, again, appears to me to be a contradiction of the nature 
of the supreme moral Governor. I cannot conceive how a supreme moral 
Governor of the universe can make His children so imperfect that they 
should err, that they should commit wrong, that they should give pain to their 
fellow-creatures ; and that then, in consequence of their blindness or their 
want of moral perception, they should be punished in a future state of existence 
by the being who made them, and who must have known beforehand that 
they would err, He being all-knowing and all-seeing. And unless you imagine 
a being who possesses these attributes, I do not see that you have anything 
to venerate and worship. So far as I have read and thought, the difficulty with 
me has been, not for men to form an adequate conception of the Deity, so much 
as for man to form a Deity, or portray a supposed Deity, that should be 
adequate to the requirements of man. All the theories of a Governor of the 
universe, of a God, of a supreme Being, seem to me so contradictory, and to 
fall so far short of human requirements, that I have not yet seen anything to 
arrest my attention, and I therefore remain, in spite of myself, and in spite of 
what Dr. Irons may think, a non-religious man. 
Rev. John Manners. — The hour is so late, or else I had several points 
which I should have liked to have brought out in reference to Dr. Irons’s 
paper, but it is now impossible to enter upon them. There are several things 
which I do not exactly understand, and others in which I do not quite agree 
with Dr. Irons ; and there are two or three grand elements left out. But I 
think the observations of Mr. Holyoake are so important that, if you will 
allow me, I should like to say, with all respect and kindness, that I should 
have the greatest possible pleasure in endeavouring to meet all his objections. 
If a man is honest and sincere, and really desirous of the truth, I should have 
the greatest pleasure in devoting any time I may have to answering his 
objections, as I feel certain of this, that there is a proper solution to his 
problem, and that in the end he would acknowledge it solved. There were 
one or two points touched upon by Dr. Irons which might have been carried 
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