Excerpt from An Address Delivered at the Centennial Celebration of the American Whig Society of the College of New Jersey, June 29, 1869
But the learning and philosophy of Greece had pro duced another result, no less favorable to the reception of Christianity. It had shaken to its base the whole edifice of heathen superstition. It had destroyed all faith in the popular religion. It is marvellous, says the Epicurean in Cicero, that one soothsayer can look another in the face without laughing. But man can not exist without religion in some form or other; and it was the void thus created in the human mind, that philosophy had sought to fill. That it had failed to do so, was no ground for disparagement, or reproach. It is easy for those who sit in the full blaze of gospel light, to speak lightly of the philosophy of a Socrates or a Plato. But, to their honor be it said, they were sincere and earnest seekers after truth: and in their speculations had risen to a lofter height than the mind of man had ever reached before; and had discovered all that human reason, in its greatest expansion, and highest state of cultivation, was capable of discovering in matters of religion. Their failure, therefore, had only demonstrated the necessity of a revelation. In one thing, however, they had succeeded. They had dethroned the false gods of heathendom, and thus pre pared the world for the reception of the true God which Christianity, proclaimed. Thus, the fulness of time had come. The mental childhood of the human race had passed away, and it had become wearied of its Old toys.
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