The fundamental idea of DUTY is awanting, and can only be supplied from a source which the Atheist ignores.

By denying the existence of God, he robs the universe of its highest glory, obliterates the idea of perfect wisdom and goodness, and leaves nothing better and holier as an object of thought than the qualities and relations of earthly things.

He degrades human nature, by doing what he can to sever the tie which binds man to his Maker, and which connects the earth with Heaven.

He circumscribes his prospects within the narrow range of "things seen and temporal," and thus removes every stimulus to dignity of sentiment, and every incentive to elevation of character.

His wretched creed (if a series of cold negations may be called a creed) must be fatal to every disinterested and heroic virtue; let it prevail, and the spirit of self-sacrifice will give place to Epicurean indulgence, and the age of martyrdom will return no more.