ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



turned into the strife of armed conquest; we see a 

 small and peaceful nation trampled underfoot by a 

 big nation bent upon plunder and conquest; we see 

 hatred toward a kindred nation glorified, and the 

 murder of innocent women and children and other 

 non-combatants adopted as a fixed policy; in fact, 

 we see all the vast resources of science and of mod- 

 ern civilization wedded to the spirit of the Hun, and 

 turned loose in a war for world-dominion. The re- 

 sults of eighteen centuries of Christian culture come 

 off the German nation like a whitewash in this craze 

 and fury of the military spirit; the German people 

 stand revealed as at heart unmitigated barbarians, 

 wonderfully efficient, but wonderfully inhuman. If 

 we appeal to the supernatural to account for things, 

 we certainly need a Devil, if not several of them, to 

 account for the temper of the German mind during 

 the late war. No wonder the good people are losing 

 faith, and are shocked and dismayed at the thought 

 that their all-loving, omnipotent God permits these 

 things. 



Down the whole course of history we see no other 

 powers at work than those that are about us. Good 

 is in the ascendancy everywhere, or soon will be; 

 evil dies out; the wicked cease from troubling; the 

 amelioration of mankind goes on; and no God or 

 Devil hinders or favors. 



Nature is both God and Devil, and natural law is 

 supreme in the world. The moral consciousness of 



44 



