Samuel Drew on Discarding the Sacred
Remarks on "The Age of Reason" (S. King: 1831), pp. 57-8.But, for the evils of which you complain, you have provided a singular remedy. Many, however, will think it too desperate, to be adopted without hesitation. To give stability to "staggering incredulity," you advise us to cut off, at one stroke, all that has been held venerable and sacred for ages; but, unfortunately, you have nothing to offer in its stead, but a liberation from every restraint on those unhallowed passions of our nature, which would furnish a passport to every vice. To remove doubts, you teach us to disbelieve; to promote the interests of moral virtue, you recommend: the abolition of every moral principle; and to awaken us from the delirium of superstition, you administer an opiate, which, while it cherishes the moral depravity of the heart, strangles, in the birth, every pang of conscientious remorse.