THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 



cyclone through the State of Illinois that killed hun- 

 dreds of innocent persons, and destroyed hundreds 

 of peaceful homes, wiping out at one blow the re- 

 sults of long years of human labor. A few years ago 

 He sent or permitted the scourge of infantile paraly- 

 sis that desolated tens of thousands of homes and 

 left a trail of thousands of crippled and enfeebled 

 children. Again He sent or permitted the influenza 

 to sweep over the land, claiming more victims than 

 did the Great War; and so on. How our fathers, 

 rocked in the cradle of the old creeds, wrestled with 

 this problem! How could a paternal and . g ,]] -]nvui^ 

 God_ do these thing s? The naturalist, reads nature 

 differently . His god is no better than Nature . In 

 fact, his god and Nature are one and ^sep arable. 

 Nature goes her way and her ways are not our ways. 

 R etake our chances in t he clash Rnd war of phys ical 

 forces. T hey have developed ns and made lis what. 

 we are. 



It was only a few years ago that the President 

 of the United States asked all good people to as- 

 semble in their respective places of worship and 

 pray to God to stop the tornado of war and crime 

 that was then devastating Europe. Is it possible to 

 conceive of a being anywhere in the universe, with 

 power to stop such a world calamity, who would 

 complacently look on and wait till the sufferers could 

 unite in a petition to him? What a false man-made 

 god such a conception holds up to us ! No wonder the 



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