THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 233 



picture which science paints for us. Human 

 beings are not what they make themselves, but 

 what they are made. Then they are doomed 

 to long-drawn suffering and death, because they 

 are what they could not help being. This, as 

 has been said, is Calvinism with God left out; 

 and it is the whole story of human life to all who 

 deny the reality of spiritual religion ; for with 

 them death, for the individual, ends all. Chris- 

 tianity paints the same picture, but with different 

 colours. It places the brightness of possible 

 escape, and of heavenly endowment and environ- 

 ment, over against this Dantean hell of death 

 in life. The law of retribution is not denied or 

 minimized ; but a Power is brought to view that 

 is able to deliver in spite of it. Salvation — all 

 that is implied in the great word grace — is in 

 the heart of the Christian faith ; but it is salva- 

 tion for those who accept the terms of salvation, 

 terms strictly in accord with the laws revealed 

 by science. I have said that the law of retri- 

 bution is not denied ; it is time, however, in view 

 of the discoveries of science, that it was defined 

 anew. Retribution is not something arbitrary, 

 but the final result of the choice of the individual ; 

 wrong-doing and suffering are inseparably bound 

 together, yet surely the degree to which the 



