I had fallen into the company of a raving madman or of some driveling idiot!

(Thomas Guthrie, 1803-1873)  LISTEN to audio! Download audio

(You will find it helpful to listen to the audio above, as you read the text below.)

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.
 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world."
Psalm 19:1-4

The existence of God can be clearly seen in nature. I do not need to open the Bible to learn that. It is enough that I open my eyes and turn them on that great book of nature, where it stands legibly written, distinctly revealed in every page.

GOD! That word may be read in the stars and on the face of the sun. It is . . .
  painted on every flower,
  traced on every leaf,
  engraved on every rock,
  whispered by the winds,
  sounded forth by the billows of the ocean, and
  may be heard by the dullest ear in the long rolling thunder.

I believe in the existence of a God, but not in the existence of an atheist; or that any man is so, who can be considered to be in his sound and sober senses.

What would we think of one who attempted to account for any other works of beauty and evident design--as the atheist professes to do for the works of God?
Here is a classic temple;
here stands a statue, designed with such taste and executed with such skill, that one almost expects the marble to leap from its pedestal;
here hangs a painting of some dead beloved one, so life-like as to move our tears;
here, in the Iliad, or Paradise Lost, is a noble poem full of the grandest thoughts, and clothed in sublimest imagery;
here is a piece of most delicate, intricate, and ingenious mechanism.

Well, let a man seriously tell me that these were the work of chance.
Let him tell me, when I ask who made them, that nobody made them.
Let him tell me, that the arrangement of the letters in this poem, of the colors in that picture, and of the features in the statue--was a matter of mere chance!

How I would stare in astonishment at him and conclude without a moment's hesitation, that I had fallen into the company of a raving madman or of some driveling idiot!

Turning away from such atheistic ravings about the infinitely more glorious works of God; with what delight does reason listen, and with what readiness does she assent, and with what distinct and hearty voice does she echo the closing words of the Seraphim's hymn, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory." Isaiah 6:3

The stupendous fabric of creation, yon starry vault, this magnificent world, were the work of the hands by which, in love of you--Jesus hung, a mangled form, on the cross of Calvary!