odest than here. It has left the preaching of a great
fundamental truth almost entirely to philosophy and science. And so very
moderate has been its tone, so slight has been the emphasis placed upon
the paralysis of the natural with regard to the spiritual, that it may
seem to some to have been intolerant. No harm certainly could come now,
no offence could be given to science, if religion asserted more clearly
its right to the spiritual world. Science has paved the way for the
reception of one of the most revolutionary doctrines of Christianity;
and if Christianity refuses to take advantage of the opening it will
manifest a culpable want of confidence in itself. There never was a time
when its fundamental doctrines could more boldly be proclaimed, or when
they could better secure the respect and arrest the interest of Science.

To all this, and apparently with force, it may, however, be objected
that to every man who truly studies Nature there is a God. Call Him by
whatever name--a Creator, a Supreme Being, a Great First Cause, a Power
that makes for Righteousness--Science has a God; and he who believes in
this, in spite of all protest, possesses a theology. "If we will look at
things, and not merely at words, we shall soon see that the scientific
man has a theology and a God, a most impressive theology, a most awful
and glorious God. I say that man believes in a God who feels himself in
the presence of a Power which is not himself, and is immeasurably above
himself, a Power in the contemplation of which he is absorbed, in the
knowledge of which he finds safety and happiness. And such now is Nature
to the scientific man."[59] Such now, we humbly submit, is Nature to the
very few. Their own confession is against it. That they are "absorbed"
in the contemplation we can well believe. That they might "find safety
and happiness" in the knowledge of Him is also possible--if they had it.
But this is just what they tell us they have not. What they deny is not
a God. It is the correspondence. The very confession of the Unknowable
is itself the dull recognition of an Environment beyond themselves, and
for which they feel they lack the correspondence. It is this want that
makes their God the Unknown God. And it is this that makes them _dead_.

We have not said, or implied, that there is not a God of Nature. We have
not affirmed that there is no Natural Religion. We are assured there is.
We are even assured that without a Religion o