l power in realms where they did
not know the laws. And as men were tempted to look for the presence of
God in realms where they did not know the laws, so in those realms they
trusted God to do for them what they did not know how to do for
themselves.

Then men began discovering natural laws, and every time they laid their
hands on a new natural law they laid their hands on a new law-abiding
force and began doing for themselves things of which their fathers had
never dreamed. Stories of old-time miracles are overpassed in our
modern days. Did Aladdin once rub a magic lamp and build a palace?
To-day, knowledge of engineering laws enables us to achieve results
that would put Aladdin quite to shame. He never dreamed a Woolworth
Tower. Did the Israelites once cross the Red Sea dry-shod? One thing,
however, they never would have hoped to do: to cross under and over the
Hudson River day after day in multitudes, dry-shod. Did an axe-head
float once when Elisha threw a stick into the water? But something no
Elisha ever dreamed of seeing we see continually: iron ships navigating
the ocean as though it were their natural element. Did Joshua once
prolong the day for battle by the staying of the sun? Yet Joshua could
never have conceived an habitual lighting of the city's homes and
streets until by night they are more brilliant than by day. Did
Jericho's walls once fall at the united shout of a besieging people?
Those childlike besiegers, however, never dreamed of guns that could
blast Jerichos to pieces from seventy miles away. Huxley was right
when he said that our highly developed sciences have given us a command
over the course of non-human nature greater than that once attributed
to the magicians.

The consequence has been revolutionary. Old cries of dependence upon
God grow unreal upon the lips of multitudes. Sometimes without knowing
it, often without wanting it, men are drawn by the drift of modern
thought away from all confidence in God and all consciousness of
religious need. Consider two pictures. The first is an epidemic in
New England in the seventeenth century. Everybody is thinking about
God; the churches are full and days are passed in fasting and agonizing
prayer. Only one way of getting rid of such an epidemic is known: men
must gain new favour in the sight of God. The second picture is an
epidemic in New England in the twentieth century. The churches are not
full--they are closed by official