ish War and the Mexican War. So we might go over the wars of
the nineteenth century and all earlier wars. The "permissiveness" or
indifference of the ruler of the universe grows amazingly. In the
meantime we had mighty catastrophes like the sinking of the _Titanic_
and other ships, the earthquakes at Messina and elsewhere, famines and
epidemics and floods in various places, and great numbers of murders,
railway and other accidents, etc. We begin to ask _where_ the ruling of
the universe comes in at all, and, as far as human events go, all that
we can gather in the way of reply is that sometimes individuals who pray
very fervently get their diseases healed or their coffers filled; and
even these claims do not pass rational inquiry.

Now here is the precise difficulty of the unbeliever, and this present
tragedy makes it acute. We ask our neighbour, or seek in some learned
theological treatise, what are the indications of this government of the
universe, and we are told about the making of stars and the decoration
of flowers and the putting of instincts into animals or pretty patterns
on their skins. But when we point out that the really important thing
in our part of the universe is this human life of ours, imperfectly
protected as yet against disease and malice (which is largely disease)
and natural forces, the theologian has no clear evidence to produce.
Even the evidence he draws from stars and flowers and peacocks' tails
and sunsets, with which he is, as a rule, very imperfectly acquainted,
is, of course, heatedly disputed, and the proper authorities on these
subjects are, on the whole, not well disposed toward his interpretation.
But we need not consider that here. Where we should most logically
expect the hand of Providence is in the human order, because in that
order catastrophe is infinitely more important, in view of man's
capacity for pain. Yet it is precisely in regard to this order that the
theologian is vaguest and least satisfactory. He talks grandly of God
moving every atom in the universe, counting the hairs of our heads,
numbering (but not preventing) the fall of the sparrows, and so on; but
when we ask for the evidence of God's concern with contemporary human
events he is very vague if they are good events, and, if they are evil,
he hastily disclaims any interference of the Deity. Some of our more
advanced theologians are claiming that the finest improvement they have
made in their science is to have brou