himself to believe in the God of the typical theologian.
Remember that the real God is the God expressed in the universe and in
yourself. The question is not whether you _shall_ believe in God, but
how much you _can_ believe about Him. You may think with Haeckel that
the universe is the outcome of the fortuitous interaction of material
forces without consciousness and definite purpose behind them, or you
may believe that the cosmos is the product of intelligence and "means
intensely and means good," but you cannot help believing in God, the
Power revealed in it. As I write these words I am seated before a
window overlooking the heaving waste of waters on a rock-bound Cornish
coast. It is a stormy day. The sky is overcast toward the western
horizon; on the east shafts of blue and saffron have pierced the pall
of darkness and flung their radiance over the spreading sea. The total
effect is strangely solemnising. The suggestion of titanic forces
conveyed in the rush of wind and wave upon the unyielding cliffs,
conjoined to the majestic march of the storm-clouds across the heaven
from the west, is somehow elevated and composed by the mystic light
that streams from the east. I have never seen anything quite like it
before. It tells me of a beneficent stillness, an eternal strength,
far above and beyond these finite tossings. It whispers the word
impossible to utter, the word that explains everything, the deep that
calleth unto deep. So my God calls always to my deeper soul, and tells
me I must read Him by mine own highest and best, and by the highest and
best that the universe has yet produced. Thus the last word about God
becomes the last word about man: it is Jesus. Materialists may tell me
that the universe does not know what it is doing, that it goes on
clanking and banging, age after age, without end or aim, but I shall
continue to feel compelled to believe that the Power which produced
Jesus must at least be equal to Jesus. So Jesus becomes my gateway to
the innermost of God. When I look at Him I say to myself, God is
_that_, and, if I can only get down to the truth about myself, I shall
find I am that too.
+What does the universe mean?+--But why is there a universe at all?
Why has the unlimited become limited? What was the need for the long
cosmic struggle, the ignorance and pain, the apparently prodigal waste
of life and beauty? Why does a perfect form appear only to be
shattered and superseded by a
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