es in this. It is impossible to define the term
completely, for to define is necessarily to limit, and we are thinking
of the illimitable. But we ought to understand clearly that to
disbelieve in God is an impossibility; everyone believes in God if he
believes in his own existence. The blankest materialist that ever
lived, whoever he may have been, must have affirmed God even in the act
of denying Him. Professor Haeckel declares his belief in God on every
page of his "Riddle of the Universe," the famous book in which he says
that God, Freedom, and Immortality are the three great buttresses of
superstition, which science must make it her business to destroy. So
far science has only succeeded in giving us a vaster, grander
conception of God by giving us a vaster, grander conception of the
universe in which we live. When I say God, I mean the mysterious Power
which is finding expression in the universe, and which is present in
every tiniest atom of the wondrous whole. I find that this Power is
the one reality I cannot get away from, for, whatever else it may be,
it is myself. Theologians will tell me that I have taken a prodigious
leap in saying this, but I cannot help it. How can there be anything
in the universe outside of God? Whatever distinctions of being there
may be within the universe it is surely clear that they must all be
transcended and comprehended within infinity. There cannot be two
infinities, nor can there be an infinite and also a finite beyond it.
What infinity may be we have no means of knowing. Here the most devout
Christian is just as much of an agnostic as Professor Huxley; we can
predicate nothing with confidence concerning the all-comprehending
unity wherein we live and move and have our being, save and except as
we see it manifested in that part of our universe which lies open to
us. One would think that this were so obvious as to need no
demonstration. But how do ordinary church-going Christians talk about
God? They talk as though He were (practically) a finite being
stationed somewhere above and beyond the universe, watching and
worrying over other and lesser finite beings, to wit, ourselves.
According to the received phraseology this God is greatly bothered and
thwarted by what men have been doing throughout the few millenniums of
human existence. He takes the whole thing very seriously, and thinks
about little else than getting wayward humanity into line again. To
this end He h