many times, they go on as though nothing had happened,
although the foundation of their house has been removed. Only theories
which stand in the air can thus defy the law of gravitation.

Nobody to-day who has a right to have an opinion believes that God ever
drowned the world. That is gone. As to the question as to whether we
have an infallible book to guide us in religious matters, there are
very few scholars in any church to-day, so far as my investigations
have led, who hold any such opinion. That is gone; and the Bible, the
Old Testament, at any rate is coming to be recognized, not as
infallible revelation, but as ancient literature, immensely
interesting, full of instruction, but not as an unquestioned guide in
any department of life.

There are many among the nominally old churches who are coming to hold
a very different theory concerning Jesus, his life, his death, and the
effect of his death on the salvation of man. More reasonable ideas are
prevailing here. In every direction also there are thousands on
thousands who are becoming freed from that horrible incubus of fear as
they look out towards the future.

As you note then, point after point of this old scheme of the universe
is disappearing, being superseded by something else; until I am
astonished, as I converse with friends in the other churches, to find
how little of it is really left, how little of it men are ready, out
and out, to defend. In conversation with an Episcopal clergyman a short
time ago on theological questions, we agreed so well that I laughingly
said I saw no reason why I should not become a clergyman in the
Episcopal Church.

Now, friends, what I wish you to note is this: that there is not one
single point in this old scheme of the universe that can be reasonably
defended to-day. It is passing away from intelligent, cultivated human
thought.

And note another thing: it is a scheme which is a discredit to the
thought of God. It is unjust. It is dishonorable in its moral and
religious implications. It is pessimistic and hopeless in its outlook
for the race. It does not explain the problems of human nature and
human experience half as well as the other theory does, even if it
could be demonstrated as truth.

Now let us look at the other. The other theory is magnificent in its
proportions. It is grand in its conception and in its age-long sweep
and range. It is worthy of the grandest thought of God we can frame;
and we cannot imagine