HARLAN T. STETSON 221 



and whose predetermined conclusion is that man is 

 the unfortunate accident of a purposeless mass of 

 cosmic machinery, momentarily caught in the mael- 

 strom of fate. 



Between these forbidding promontories of Scylla 

 and Charybdis must the prophet of a modern religion 

 steer his course towards an uncharted sea. 



To attempt to dispel all religion from the category 

 of human experience is to deny the element of human 

 nature which not only makes existence tolerable, but 

 which has stood for all which has made worthwhile 

 some of the greatest achievements in the records of 

 civilization. Such a statement, I think, scarcely can 

 be challenged, provided a man allows himself a liberal 

 interpretation of the word religion. As long as a 

 man maintains any standards of living, holds to ideals, 

 and indulges in Utopian dreams, he will probably be 

 incurably religious. What sort of rehgion, however, 

 suits his indulgence will depend very much I fancy, 

 on his interpretation of the universe around us, a 

 universe made more staggering to his imagination and 

 increasingly intricate in its machinery by every sub- 

 sequent discovery of science. In this respect, whether 

 we will or not, a man's science becomes intimately 

 associated with his religion. 



To be sure, modern astronomy tells us that all the 

 stars are suns and our sun but a rather insignificant 

 star lost in a galactic system we call the Milky Way. 

 Mankind dwells upon a tiny earth we call our world, 

 and is being whirled about the sun with the swiftness 

 of a projectile. The sun and all its planets rush 

 through space 400,000,000 miles a year, across a 



