ling clouds, far away through the deep blue, where imagination builds
its fairy palace of delight, and God sits on his golden throne, and
swift, bright angels speed forth to execute his commands. Tell a child
anything you please about that land of fancy and you will be believed,
especially if the tale comes from beloved lips, or from lips that bear
the glamor of authority. And what the child is to the adult, early or
savage man is to the civilisee. To the African negroes the highest god
is the Sky; the great deity _Dyu_ of our Aryan ancestors was the Sky;
the Greek _Zeue_ and the Latin _Jupiter_ were both the Heaven-Father;
and we still say "Heaven forgive me!" or "Fear the vengeance of Heaven!"

This Heaven, however, is no longer credible to any one with a tincture
of science. Hard as the truth to a child or a savage, the sky is not a
reality, but an optical illusion. For forty or forty-five miles from the
earth's surface there is a belt of atmosphere, growing rarer and rarer
as it approaches the infinite ocean of aether. Gone for ever is the old
delusion of a solid Heaven overhead, with windows in it, through which
God and the angels looked down upon the earth and its inhabitants. And
what site is there for Heaven out in the cold blackness of space?

That Heaven is gone, and where is Our Father? Science shows us a
world of absolute order, in which what we call the laws of nature--the
observed sequence and recurrence of phenomena--are never broken. The
world was not fashioned for man's dwelling, nor is it maintained for his
benefit. Towards the poles he freezes, towards the equator he burns. The
rain nourishes his crops or rots them, without asking his pleasure; the
sea bears him or drowns him, with equal unconcern; the lightning slays
him or spares him, whether good, bad or indifferent, as he happens to be
in or out of the line of its dazzling flight; famine pinches his! cheeks
if he cannot procure food; the pestilence seizes upon his nerves and
blood unless he learns the antidote to its ravages. He stands amidst
the play of terrific forces, and only preserves himself by vigilance,
patience, courage and industry. If he falls the enemy is upon him, and
the doom of the vanquished is death. Nature shows him no mercy. His
mistakes are as fatal as his crimes.

"God" has been in his "Heaven" for eternity, but all is _not_ right with
the world. Man is always endeavoring to improve it, but what assistance
comes from above? A