They have asked, and have attempted to answer, such questions as these: What are we?
what was our origin?
what is our destination?
Whence came this stupendous fabric of Nature?
Is it self-existent and eternal?
or did it come into being at some definite time?
If not eternal, how was it produced?
by chance or by design?
by inevitable fate or by spontaneous will?
Whence the order which pervades it, and the beauty by which it is adorned?
Whence, above all, the evil, moral and physical, by which it is disfigured and cursed?
And, in reply to these thoughtful questionings, various theories have been invented to account for the existing order of things, while not a few of the most daring thinkers have abandoned the subject in despair, and, holding it to be an insoluble problem, have resigned themselves to the cheerless gloom of Skepticism.

In reviewing all these speculations and theories, we must bear in mind that their authors and advocates, although more thoughtful and inquisitive than the great majority of mankind, were equally subject to the same corrupting influence,--"the evil heart of unbelief,"-- and that the same cause which produced practical Atheism in some, and abject Superstition in others, may also have operated, but more insidiously, in producing Speculative Infidelity in the minds of those who are more addicted to abstruse philosophical inquiries.

We must seek to get down to the root of the evil, if we would suggest or apply an effectual remedy; we must not deal with the symptoms merely, but search for and probe the seat of the disease; and if that be the disordered state of our moral nature, which gives rise to fears and forebodings as often as we think of God, no remedy will be effectual which does not remove our distrust, suspicion, and jealousy; and no argument, however conclusive, will have any practical power which does not present such views of God as to make him an object of confidence, and trust, and love.

It is of vast importance that this fundamental truth should be kept steadily in view; for, as the disordered state of our moral nature is the rudimental source both of practical Atheism and of popular Superstition, so it is also the prolific parent of Speculative Infidelity in every variety of form: and as long as the remedy is not applied to the root of the disease, the Atheist, if forced to relinquish one theory, will only betake himself to another, and after having gone the round of them all, will rather throw himself into the vortex of utter and hopeless skepticism, than acknowledge a God whom he cannot love, a Judge whom he cannot but dread.

Christianity alone can supply an effectual remedy, and it is such a remedy as is fitted to cure alike the habitual ungodliness, the abject superstition, and the speculative infidelity, which have all sprung from the same prolific source.