Christianity the Religion of Nature Author:Andrew Preston Peabody Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: disease are fumbling at our heart-strings, — then a troop of sad analogies force themselves upon us. We think of the blighted buds and germs, immeasurably more n... more »umerous than the fructifying, of the destruction with no resurrection in many departments of organized being, of the loss of identity in so many cases where there is a continuity of' life ; and these resemblances are melancholy presages of victorious death and a devouring grave. In fine, there is no form of belief, no hope, no fear, which may not fortify itself by analogies. Analogy, therefore, proves nothing, and cannot be a trustworthy source of religious knowledge. What, then, is the office of analogy ? It serves, in the first place, to guide us in the investigation of truth, and, secondly, to answer objections. 1. To guide us in the investigation of truth. The mere wish to discern truth is fruitless. Nature has but two answers — yes and no — for her inquirer ; and whether he ever gets a yes, depends entirely on his skill in shaping his questions. What shall we ask ? How shall we direct our inquiries in an unexplored field ? Analogy must frame our questions, must suggest what we may reasonably expect to find. The likeness of things known and familiar may occur in things new and unexplored, and it is for this likeness that we are to look and ask, seeking, in what is as yet unknown, facts, principles, and laws analogous to those with which we are already conversant. Analogy thus carries the torch before us through the dim aisles of the temple of truth. 2. The second office of analogy is to remove objections- which we cannot answer, against facts or truths in whose behalf we have a competent weight of positive evidence Of course, to answer objections is the readiest way oiremoving them. But often, from their very ...« less